The Drabbles
by grumkinsnark
Summary: A collection of short prompt responses. Chapter titles contain relevant characters/pairings.
1. Elia, Rhaegar I

_**Anon asked:** Can you write a fic where Elia destroys, tears apart Rhaegar's harp then throw it to flames as he watches? It can take place before he leaves for Trident. Idk I'm just sooo angry about Rhaegar. I stopped watching show since Sansa's rape and only was interested on what's happening and now I learned about annulment and more outrages shit that will happen on episode 7 from the leaks. I can beat D&D with Dance of the dragons(in the case it is the heaviest book) and I just want to see Rhaegar cry._

* * *

"Elia, be reasonable. Cruelty is not like you."

"Reasonable? You're asking me to be reasonable? Were you reasonable when you ran off with a betrothed girl of five-and-ten, leaving me and the children to the mercies of your father? You should pray to all seven gods that I don't decide to kill you in your sleep."

"Please, not this. This is over the line. Don't hurt it. It's worth too much to me."

"Is it worth a realm? Tell me where the girl is so I can stop this madness, and you can have your damned harp back. Or else it is going in the fire where it belongs. Personally, I can't wait to see those silver strings burn. I hate bloody harp music."

"This was a commission from a well-respected artisan. Do you know how much was spent on it?"

"No, but I would imagine quite a bit less than the war. And since it's treason to dismember you, this is the next best thing. So again, I ask: where is the Stark girl?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Very well then. This will hurt you a lot more than it hurts me."

The harp goes up faster than she'd thought, the fire catching instantly on the worn wood, thin silver strings glowing red before melting in the flames. Rhaegar makes a move to attempt to salvage it, but Elia steps in front of the fireplace, and with a single glare, he stops.

"Make one more move and I'll break your fingers. See how well you can play after that."

"I can't believe you just burned—"

"I'll do a lot more than that when you come back from the Trident. Your precious scrolls are next."

"Not the scrolls!"


	2. Ned x Cat I

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **rhaella asked:** ned/cat, modern au stark family disney world trip_

* * *

"Kids, stop complaining, your father is right—the matching outfits are a great idea." Catelyn shoos the children away, looks down at the Mickey Mouse on her shirt, and kisses Ned on the cheek. "Honey, I love you, but these were a horrible idea."


	3. Robb x Rhaenys I

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **ashara asked:** robb/rhaenys + modern au, moving into their first apartment together_

* * *

"I hate this part," says Robb with a sigh as he looks around at all the boxes they have to unpack.

Rhaenys pulls him to her and drops her hands to his belt. "Well, you know what they say: it's bad luck to move in before you've christened the place."


	4. Jon x Stannis

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **branstvrks asked:** Jon x Stannis_

* * *

Stannis is hard and unyielding and prickly, to put it gently. But even so, there's something about talking to him, planning with him, that puts Jon at ease. Stannis talks to him not in condescension like Ser Alliser but instead like a _person_ , like someone deserving of respect—though not idolatry—and it's _nice_.


	5. Elia, Catelyn, Robb x Rhaenys

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **catellynstully asked:** elia & catelyn talking about rhaenys x robb_

* * *

They both try to play it off, her daughter and Catelyn's son, but they're utterly terrible at it; she's never seen Rhaenys act this way around someone, and there's no mistaking the adoration in Robb's eyes when he looks at her. This is the last thing she wanted, to have her daughter throw in her lot with the _Starks_ of all people, but how could she possibly deny her?

One glance at Lady Catelyn tells her the woman sees the same thing she does, and so she leans over and says, "My lady, I think there's something we should discuss."


	6. Rhaenys, Balerion

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Can I suggest princess Rhaenys + happiness - petting her cat Balerion?_

* * *

The others don't understand her love for him, because he doesn't treat them the same way he treats her, they only see his hissing and scratching. He's not that way to her; he lets her pet him, purring all the while, and he snuggles up into her side at night, and he never drops dead mice on her pillow like he does with the servants. Things are hard for her, after Father leaves and they have to live with Grandfather, but Balerion tends to her even more than he had at Dragonstone—he even tends to Mother and the baby too, sometimes—and he makes her feel like everything's going to be all right in the end.


	7. Robb x Rhaenys II

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **bbnightengale asked:** Rhaenys x Robb during war of the 5 kings? Like she secretly survives?_

* * *

"They say you died in the Sack of King's Landing."

"They say you ride into battle on the back of a giant direwolf."

"They say Dorne wants to send spears to my cause."

"They say you're in need of a bride."

"What do you say?"

"I say I'll fuck you right here and now if it means I can watch that wolf of yours slaughter every last Lannister, one by one."


	8. Rhaelle, Rhaella

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Rhaelle Targaryen saves Rhaella. She was sold once to pay a debt her siblings skipped out on, the Seven take her if she lets it happen to her niece._

* * *

She'd begged— _brother, have you forgotten what our father did to me because of you?_ —but he hadn't listened, not even a little; prophecy this, prophecy that.

And so just days before the wedding, Rhaelle takes matters into her own hands: she dyes little Rhaella's hair, dresses her in blue, disguises her until she could be any other highborn child.

Under the cover of night, Rhaelle hands her off to Jenny, Jenny with flowers in her hair and a promise of safety on her lips, and as she watches them ride off into the dark she cares not what consequences she may endure, only that she has spared her namesake her own fate.


	9. Elia, Lyanna I

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Lyanna Stark & Elia conspire to murder Rhaegar. Lyanna runs off with Jon to the Free Cities and be have fun. Elia is queen regnant for Aegon._

* * *

It happens like this: _We didn't do it, but if we'd done it, how could you tell us that we were wrong?_

It happens like this: Braavos is exactly what Lyanna thought it would be, crisp and new and _free_.

It happens like this: They crown him Aegon the Sixth of His Name, and her the Queen Regent, and for the first time in a long time she has reason to smile.


	10. Elia, Ashara

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Elia and Ashara for the pairing story? Maybe taking care of Elia's children?_

* * *

"We can raise them together, Ash, your babe and mine."

Ashara's hand rests on her just-protruding belly, only a few months behind Elia's own, and she laughs, "As if His Grace would let Brandon Stark's bastard play with your royal children."

"Aerys won't be king forever," Elia mentions casually, "and when he's not, things will change."


	11. Rhaenys, Balerion II

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Baby Rhaenys + actual dragon Balerion he murders any one who breathes wrong in her direction and adores Elia and Rhaella._

* * *

They each get a dragon egg in their cradles, she, Aegon, and Dany, as per tradition; hers is black and scarlet, Aegon's green and bronze, her aunt's cream and gold.

No one expects them to hatch yet hatch they do, and Rhaenys names hers after the Black Dread lest anyone dare to insult her or her mother any more than they already do.

Bal never _actually_ burns anyone, but as he gets bigger and bigger, as his teeth grow longer and longer when he bares them, the courtiers get nicer and nicer.


	12. Rhaenys, Rhaella

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Rhaenys and rhaella with rhaella comforting her fav granddaughter when some dumb lord insults her for being half dornish_

* * *

It isn't until she's five that she really recognizes the _meaning_ behind what some people say rather than the words themselves, when she learns that "No, not Princess Daenerys, the _other_ one, the serpent's daughter" did not mean what she thought it meant.

She's staring at herself in the mirror one evening when the queen comes in to put her to bed, and she says, "I don't think I want to be Dornish anymore, Grandmother."

Rhaella's eyes go hard in a way Rhaenys is unused to, and she demands to know the names of the people who had spoken; a day later, Rhaenys finds out they'd been dismissed from court without a word.


	13. Elia x Rhaegar I

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Elia and Rhaegar. First time. King's Landing._

* * *

He's…not what she expected.

At first she thinks _she's_ the one doing something wrong, for surely, _surely_ , the most beautiful, chivalrous, perfect man in the realm could only make her feel such unimaginable pleasure that she saw stars, not this…whatever this is.

Yet no matter how hard she tries, all she can manage to feel is _bored_ , and then it's over before it begins and he leaves, which brings her to the unwelcome realization that their marriage would be a very cold one indeed.


	14. Elia, Oberyn, Rhaegar

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Elia and oberyn meeting rhaegar for first time._

* * *

"That was the most broody hipster I've ever met."

"Maybe he was a little reserved, but—"

"Ten bucks says the first song he plays is 'Wonderwall.'"


	15. Rhaegar x Lyanna

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** R+L, Rhaegar once again proves he's the worst in bed._

* * *

"That was it?"

"What do you mean, 'that was it'?"

 _Oh, I guess it was._


	16. Elia, Doran

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Elia and oberyn annoying doran._

* * *

"I dreamt that I lost you, that I lost you and Oberyn both."

"You'll never lose us, dearest."

She splashes him with water from the pools, calls him the nicknames he hates, and soon the nightmare that had felt so real fades away.


	17. Rhaenys, Viserys

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Rhaenys/ Viserys ❤_

* * *

"What if I go mad just like he did?"

He clutches her hand like a lifeline as she swears, "You won't. Not while I'm around."


	18. Robb x Rhaenys, Theon

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Rhaenys and Theon Greyjoy in a modern AU (weird, I know)_

* * *

Rhaenys sighs as she watches Robb and Theon get into a very animated conversation over some foreign video game she's never heard of, not for the first time wondering what she'd gotten herself into. He's all of Robb's insecurities with all of Jon's temper and all of Mr. Greyjoy's entitlement, but Robb loves him for all that. _When you marry someone you marry their friends_ , she'd heard somewhere, and for better or worse, she knows Theon's here to stay.


	19. Rhaenys, Aegon

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** rhaenys and aegon, alive & grown up_

* * *

"Look at us, sister," says Aegon as he loops her arm through his. "After everything, can you believe this is where we are?"

The years have threaded his hair through with white by now, hers even more so, but she doesn't mind; it means they've _lived_.


	20. Elia

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Elia being a badass. Slaying 10 lannisters and saving her kids before being killed by the mountain._

 _[I don't like AUs where Elia dies, so she lives in this one.]_

* * *

It's all a blur, but the one thing she can remember thinking clearly is, _How unfortunate that you chose the Red Viper's sister to target._

She's no warrior, so instead she coats the tips of her guards' spears with Oberyn's own brand of poison, and all they have to do is nick the Lannister soldiers, then wait, and within moments the soldiers begin writhing on the floor until they don't.

They fell Amory Lorch but Gregor Clegane is a different monster entirely, one Elia knows she cannot beat; instead, she hides with Aegon, hides with Rhaenys, and _lives_.


	21. Arthur, Aegon

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** I wish you could write about Arthur and Aegon (Elia's son)_

* * *

Aegon's been king in name if not in power for fifteen years now, and yet now, on the day of his coronation and sixteenth birthday, he looks more nervous than Arthur's ever seen him.

"Hey," he says, putting his hands on the boy's shoulders, "you'll be fine, you always have been."

"I don't know about that," Aegon replies, but he does smile, which is good enough for Arthur.


	22. Elia x Lyanna

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Elia / Lyanna kicking Rhaegar's ass and living happily with their children (who have their own names, thank you). Another anon asked: Can I request Elia/Lyanna?_

* * *

"He went down a little easier than I wanted," says Lyanna as the guards escort Rhaegar to the black cells.

Elia looks over at her and grins, taking stock of the three children between them and the bright future ahead. "Oh, I have something special planned for him."


	23. Rhaella, Viserys, Daenerys

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Rhaella survives with Dany and Vis au?_

* * *

She survives her daughter's birth, though barely.

She survives Essos, soothes Viserys's nightmares, raises Dany the way Rhaella wishes she could have been raised.

She survives.


	24. Aegon, Jon

_For 3-sentence AU meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** The tale of two Aegons. Aegons excited, tiny bit nervous but would never admit it for first day of hs and is shocked, surprised when homeroom teacher calls on him and another guy raises his hand. He's like lmao you wish you were as fly as me and the other guys like no that's my name! excuse you!_

* * *

Aegon is just turning to his friends to chat when Mrs. Blake calls out the next name: "Oh, and… _another_ Aegon Targaryen?"

Aegon snaps his head over to where a boy responds, one with brown hair and gray eyes who looks just as confused as Aegon himself.

"I don't know who you are," warns Aegon, "but there's only room for one Aegon in this town."


	25. Robb x Rhaenys III

_For a number meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Robb/Rhaenys in 11/21?_

* * *

 _11\. can you hear me_  
 _21\. good riddance_

He wakes to the sound of screaming.

His first instinct is alarm, to reach for his sword that hangs on the wall. But the sound is coming from beside him, and in an instant the alarm fades to awful realization. Rhaenys's skin is ashen and covered in sweat, the sheets kicked aside, her hands clenched into fists so tight that blood drips from where her nails have pierced her palms.

It's been years since he's seen her like this, so long that he'd begun to believe the fits had gone away entirely, but there's no mistaking this for what it is. He's a fool for thinking any part of her could ever forget what happened, could forget hearing her mother and brother being slaughtered a floor below, could forget what the Lannisters had done, no matter that it's been over four decades now since that day.

Bracing himself against her thrashing—it wouldn't be the first time he got hit—he pulls her to his chest and tries to loosen her fingers. "Rhaenys," he says sharply. "Rhaenys, can you hear me? _Wake up._ "

He doesn't know how long it takes to get through to her; time always becomes a blur when this happens, his heart breaking every second she's trapped inside her memories. And then finally, _finally_ , her body stills and her dark eyes flutter open. "Robb? What—?"

"You had a nightmare, my love," he whispers. "You're in Winterfell, you're safe."

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, she nods, and then covers her face with her hands. "I thought I was free of those," she despairs. "I thought I was free of _him_. But I'm _not_ , it was the same dream, the one where I'm Mother, where I can _feel him_ —"

Her words become unintelligible as she devolves into sobs, and he says nothing, does nothing, just lets her weep. He'd learned long ago that there is nothing he can say to make it better, that he can't pull her through it alone. He wishes he could kill Gregor Clegane as brutally as the beast had killed her family, but no, he's already been felled, that was Prince Oberyn's crusade.

So what can he do now? How can he fight a ghost? He has an entire kingdom under his rule, dozens of houses sworn to him, countless men who would go to the ends of the earth if he asked, and yet none of that is worth a damn thing. No army in the world can fight this war, not when it's in her head.

"What can I do?" he begs, unable to bear being so _useless_. "Tell me what I can do."

She looks up at him, and behind her grief and fear, he sees _her_. "Stay here with me."

He kisses away her tears and vows, "Always."


	26. Elia x Arthur I

_For a number meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** 14, 17 arthur x elia_

* * *

 _14\. first kiss_  
 _17\. last dance_

She remembers how he was when they were younger, always shy even after he'd grown tall and handsome. She remembers the festivities that had been held on the tenth anniversary of her mother's reign, how they'd all indulged a bit too much in wine, for they were four-and-ten and only just allowed the drink. She remembers the way Arthur had looked that night, the way the moonlight glinted off the dark waves of his hair, how nervous he'd been right before he kissed her. She remembers how the air smelled, of magnolias and orange trees and date palms. She remembers how profusely he'd apologized, and she remembers how eagerly she'd shut him up with a kiss of her own. She remembers how nothing had been the same since. She remembers _them_.

Now…she doesn't know either of them now. She doesn't know herself, and she doesn't know the man in front of her. She doesn't know this _misery_.

"Do you remember the last time I danced with you?" he asks.

"Doran and Mellario's wedding." Nigh on seven years ago that had been, and she recalls it clear as day. He'd been full of optimism and adventure back then, not like now, not when his eyes are haunted with the things they've seen.

"Do you remember what I told you that night?"

 _How could I forget?_ "Arthur, quiet." There are more guests than she can count grouped in the throne room, and almost all of them with a working set of ears. If they were still children, it wouldn't make any difference, but here…

"Elia."

Every step is painful, every _breath_ is painful. In the sight of gods and men, she has been proclaimed Rhaegar Targaryen's wife, and she wishes more than anything it weren't so. Arthur's eyes are overbright with drink; she wonders how he'd managed that under the White Bull's watchful gaze. Or perhaps the old man had noticed after all, perhaps Arthur had done it on purpose, perhaps he thinks censure will spare him the task of standing outside the door tonight as she's bedded. If only _she_ could be spared.

She looks up at him. "You said that so long as the world still turned, you would love me."

"I meant it."

"It doesn't matter. Not anymore. Now, it's treason."

 _You could have stopped this_ , she thinks viciously. _If you wanted to, you could have stopped the wedding. You could have taken me somewhere, done something, anything. You could have spared us both the agony._

The courtiers applaud as the tune draws to a close, but all Elia hears is a key locking her gilded cage.


	27. Arianne x Daemon

_For a number meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** could you do 4 and 20 for Arianne/Daemon?_

* * *

 _4\. irresistible_  
 _20\. breaking the rules_

She had sent the first raven to her father hours ago and yet ever since she has not been able to sleep, even though the pallet that the inn had given her is satisfactory enough and neither Jayne nor Elia is prone to snoring or sleeptalking. Her mind whirls, but with thoughts she can never pin down, each more complicated than the last, until finally she surrenders to the racket.

Careful not to awaken her companions–gods know she doesn't want to be peppered with Elia's questions–she slinks out of the room and wanders outside to the garden where the inn grows its herbs and flowers. A misting rain had begun to fall, but she doesn't mind; if she tries hard enough, she can almost imagine she's back in Sunspear where mist heralds raging thunderstorms.

"Others steal your dreams?" comes a voice from the darkness. She would be startled, had the voice not been as familiar to her as her own.

She searches for where it had come from, and finds Daemon sitting on a stone bench needlessly sharpening his sword, protected from the rain by a towering maple. "Mayhaps," she agrees, walking over to sit by him. "I'm thinking too much."

"You're more like your father than you know." He gives her a faint smile, but it's not faint enough to hide the dimples that had always set her heart to stuttering.

"I…I'm afraid." The confession comes without her say-so, and she hates that after all this time, he can still drag out her innermost fears with nary a word.

He sheathes his sword and sets it and the whetstone aside to look at her properly. His blue eyes are as dark as the sky above them. "Afraid?"

"Of failing," she answers. "My father has endured so much pain, I don't want to inflict more. Dorne is a tinderbox, and one piece of false information, one misstep, and it will light up in flames. Who even knows if this Aegon is truly my cousin, and _Myrcella_ …" She takes a shuddering breath. "I am lost. What do I know of cleverness? The last time I thought I was clever, Ser Arys lost his life, my friends were scattered to the wind, and a princess lost half her face. Who am I to undertake this task? It should be Areo, or…or someone else, not me."

She startles when Daemon reaches up to put a hand on her cheek. His palm is rough from swordplay, and warm as the summer sun. "You're Arianne Martell, heir to all of Dorne."

"I don't feel much like an heir."

"You're Arianne," he tries instead, "the girl who used to stand out in the rain until she caught a chill because she felt it was Mother Rhoyne come to bid her a blessing."

She smiles at the memory. "My mother thought I had lost my wits," she says. "So did you. But you stood out there with me anyway."

"What else was I to do?" She can't see him in the obscured moonlight, but she can hear the tremor in his voice. "I was mad for you."

"Are you still?" she blurts out. This is dangerous territory, territory that hasn't been explored in years. "You're so distant with me, but sometimes there are moments where…"

He doesn't answer, and she fully expects him to leave in a rush, angry and irritated, but he doesn't. "I could sooner stop being mad for you than I could stop breathing," he murmurs. "Being distant is the only way I can stand to be around you. Your dalliance with that Kingsguard…it nearly broke me, Ari."

"I didn't love him. He wasn't you."

"Please don't."

"I need you to know," she insists, wondering why she feels she must explain it to him. Why she must explain it _here_ , outside some drafty inn on Cape Wrath when they have far bigger problems to deal with. "That night you told me you asked my father for my hand, I could hardly believe it. And then you told me he refused, and you just withdrew, you didn't even wait–" She swallows. "I'd have said _yes_. It didn't matter to me that manner of your birth, I didn't _care_. I _don't_ care. I'd have run away with you if that's what it took."

He stares at her, as though what she'd said was the last thing he thought he'd hear. "It makes no difference now."

 _No_ , she thinks, _I suppose it doesn't. More than ever Father wouldn't let me marry a bastard, and it would be too dangerous to run away. Time has torn us from one another._

"Maybe not marriage," she relents, "but we are neither of us betrothed nor wed, and we are far away from any prying eyes. I miss you, Daemon."

She begins to slide her hand up his thigh, but he grabs her wrist. "We can't. We're too far past it."

He's right, she supposes, so she tries to take her hand away, but he keeps her in place. And then he leans forward and kisses her, hesitant, barely more than a brush, yet it alights something in her than she hasn't felt in more years than she can remember, a yearning Arys could never ignite. Daemon Sand had made her a woman, and she had made him a man, and she hadn't realized until this moment just how much she _had_ missed him.

"This…Ari, we can't…not after tonight."

"I know."

He looks at her a second more and then he's kissing her again, ravenous and unbridled, and she moves to his lap already desperate to have him. He tastes the same as she remembers, feels the same but for the stubble on his jaw and the power in his body. Arys had been leaner, clumsier, had regretted every minute of their coupling, but Daemon…

She curses as he bites at her neck, and all of a sudden the cold mist is not nearly enough to cool her burning skin, and she needs more, she needs _him_ , she _needs_.

He has her thrice that night, once in the garden and twice in an empty room they find, and each time it feels a little more like regaining herself, a little more like coming home. He lies beside her, afterward, exhausted and sated, and in his embrace she all but forgets about her harrowing mission ahead.

Somehow she knows he'll be gone by daybreak, but for now he's hers, body and soul.


	28. Elia x Brandon

_For a number meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** 5, 22 Elia Martell x Brandon Stark_

* * *

 _5\. hold my hand_  
 _22\. books_

She'd grown up with tales of the massive size of Harrenhal, but she hadn't fathomed its true eerie grandeur until she entered it. Sunspear's Great Hall could fit twice over in the library alone, which is home to more books than she could read in a lifetime. A passing servant had been gracious enough to direct her to it, and after an hour of searching, she finally settles on a few novels to peruse over the next week. It's as she's distracted reading the introduction of one that she collides with someone, and the books tumble to the ground.

"Oh!" She had expected perhaps a serving boy or a page, but she gets neither, instead faced with the handsome figure of Brandon Stark. She hadn't taken him for a library man; perhaps he got lost. "Forgive me, Lord Brandon, I was not minding my steps."

"I often have that effect," he says. He brings her hand up to his lips and smiles. "I shall not hold it against you, Your Grace."

"Right. Well, if you'll pardon me, I'll just collect my books and be on my way."

Brandon leans down to help her, and hands them all to her except the one she'd been looking at, which he opens and flips through. "You're going to read this?"

"Yes. So may I just—"

Brandon squints at it. "But there aren't any illustrations," he says, confused. "How are you supposed to understand what's happening?"

"Some people use their imagination," she says, trying to keep the incredulity out of her voice.

 _Now I know why Ash has not made a fuss about being unable to marry him_ , Elia thinks. _He's a pretty face, but wouldn't make for the most intelligent of conversation partners._

"Reading is overrated for women, I've always said," he comments, still holding her book out of her reach. "What's next, politics?"

If he weren't a Lord Paramount's heir, Elia would have brushed him aside long ago, but rude she cannot be. Carefully keeping her tone neutral, she corrects, "Where I am from, my lord, women are oft involved in politics. Mine own mother reigned for twenty years, and it was a woman who brought Dorne into a single kingdom."

Brandon waves his hand dismissively. "Dorne is too attached to the ways of the Rhoynar."

"You know," she says, "Lady Ashara is quite a learned woman herself, and her grandmother ruled Starfall in her own right for more than forty years. Surely you show the women you bed some respect?"

"All told, there isn't much talking between Lady Ashara and myself."

"No, I imagine she prefers it that way." Before he can work out her meaning, she plucks her book from his hand and makes her retreat. "Have yourself a pleasant night, my lord."


	29. Robb x Rhaenys IV

_For a number meme._

 _ **rhaella asked:** 2, 20 robb x rhaenys_

 _ **Anon asked:** robb/rhaenys 13, 20_

* * *

 _2/13. in the snow/storm_  
 _20\. breaking the rules_

"Robb Stark, have you gone mad? You expect me to go out into a blizzard?"

He grins the grin that flutters her heart–not that she would ever tell him so. She tries to ignore it. "Where's your sense of adventure, Your Grace?"

"You are aware it is unseemly for a lady to be alone with a man who is not her intended?"

"If the king's sister and Master of Laws can't do as she likes, who among us can?"

"I am not the Master of Laws."

Robb rolls his eyes. "Not in title, mayhaps, but neither was Elaena Targaryen and yet everyone knows she was the real Master of Coin."

"Never mind that. I am not going out there. I hardly know you."

"Three progresses to Winterfell you and His Grace have made, and that tourney in the riverlands," he points out. "I am still a stranger to you?"

She should have rebuffed him ages ago, for his behavior is far too familiar than is proper; she can only imagine Lady Catelyn's reaction if she were aware of it. And yet every time Rhaenys tells herself she should remind him of their stations, that she outranks him by several tiers, the words never leave her mouth. He's a bad habit now, one she can't seem to break.

He holds out his hand. "I won't let you get frostbite. Promise."

Cursing herself for her weakness, she takes his hand and lets him lead her outside into the falling snow. Truthfully, she'd become more or less accustomed to the cold ages ago–though she'd take Dorne's blazing heat over it any day–but it makes her feel better to complain. She's grateful that Robb is the heir to Winterfell, for it means neither the guards nor the workers would make mention of them to anyone, though their incredulous expressions are almost enough to have her insisting they turn back.

In the courtyard the snow is slush rather than powder, but as soon as they enter the godswood it is perfectly pristine, disturbed by not so much as a rabbit or doe. She slows in order to better look around her, caught up by the splendor. The weirwood branches are heavy with snow, their trunks nearly invisible but for the weeping faces carved into them. It smells new and old all at once, and it only takes a short while before the castle is out of sight, throwing them into a silent wonderland.

"Well?" he asks.

She turns from the trees to him, and rather wishes she hadn't. Snowflakes are melting in his hair, and his eyes are a splash of color against the surrounding white. "It's beautiful," she concedes. "Thank you."

"Almost as beautiful as you."

She startles at his boldness. "Excuse me?"

"Forgive me," he says at once. "That was inappropriate."

"Very much so. You are out of line, my lord." For all that she forces sternness into her voices, though, her heart thunders at his words. She'd been called beautiful before, but by sycophants and family, never like this. There is no ulterior motive that she can spot, no false sincerity, and it's that that makes her ask, "Why would you say such a thing?"

"Well, it's the truth, isn't it?"

"Are you goading me into vanity?"

"No, of course not." He runs a hand through his hair, flustered. "This is not going how I planned."

"What exactly were your plans?"

He winces. "When you ask it like _that_ , I'm going to sound like a cad. A mistaken one, no less."

"Need I remind you it is a crime to refuse a princess?"

"I merely–I'd thought–" He straightens his shoulders and takes her hands. "Have I imagined this? If I have, you need only say the word and I shan't mention it again."

She considers doing exactly that; it would be one fewer complication in her life, but all the same the thought of lying, here in the ancient godswood, lying when it would mean he would only ever be any other Lord Paramount's son and not…whatever he is now, it sits ill with her.

"It's not that simple," she says. "My fate is not my own to decide, and my mother…surely you see how this could cause her pain."

"We are to pay for the mistakes of our kin?"

"That's how the world works," she sighs. "Daeron the Good paid for Aegon the Unworthy, every Targaryen woman has paid for King Jaehaerys I, the Reynes and Tarbecks paid for Lady Ellyn and her brothers. So must I pay for my father and grandfather."

"I don't believe that. The realm is healed thanks to your brother."

"What makes you think it would even work? A union between Targaryen and Stark has never succeeded. Not the pact that Aegon III promised Cregan Stark, not my father and your aunt. Why would we be any different?"

"Because we are not any of them," he says. "We have come together in a time of peace, not war. As for Queen Elia, has she shown mislike of me?"

"She hasn't said anything, no." Rhaenys knows her mother has no fondness for the Stark name, but she can't remember her saying anything bad about Robb the one time she met him, nor has she spoken ill of Lord Eddard. All the same, her mother has suffered enough, and Rhaenys couldn't bear adding to it. "Robb, I can't. Not…not yet."

"But someday?"

She rises up to her toes and kisses him, light and sweet. "Mayhaps."

That they're standing here, Targaryen and Stark, the realm free of war for more than twenty years, her mother and grandmother both happy, her brother in the throes of wedding preparations, makes her wonder if Robb is right after all. Maybe they can do what the others didn't. Maybe they are the answer. Maybe Robb is _her_ answer.


	30. Rhaella x Bonifer

_For a number meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** 39 - Rhaella and Bonifer_

* * *

 _39\. secret admirer_

She wonders if he ever thinks of her. More and more often as the years pass, she wonders.

The tourney hadn't seemed significant at the time, she a girl of twelve and he a new-made knight of six-and-ten, both of them full of life, neither of them yet burdened. He had caught her eye the way stained glass catches the sun, had asked for her favor, and it had bubbled up something inside her that she hadn't known what to do with. Something happy, something exhilarating, something new, something _exciting_. She remembers how after she'd given Ser Bonifer her ribbon, Aunt Rhaelle had smiled, how she'd come over and whispered, _Ooh, Ella, he's a handsome one._

 _Yes, auntie_ , Rhaella had replied, _but I don't care about any of that. He's a nice boy, and when we talked he listened to me. Really listened, like you and Grandfather do. And isn't that what's most important? For a boy to be nice?_

 _Of course, darling, of course it is._ Rhaelle had turned sad then, just for a moment. Rhaella hadn't paid it much mind until after the marriage announcement when it finally dawned on her.

 _Did you know?_ she'd spat. _Did you know about the prophecy? Did you know Father would force me to marry my brother? Why didn't you_ tell _me? Why did you let me think something could happen with Ser Bonifer? Why?_

Rhaelle hadn't given her an answer then; perhaps she'd had none.

And Bonifer...

Even now, after decades of horrors, Rhaella can still recall what he looked like the day of her wedding, how green his eyes were, the faint quiver in his gentle voice. _I can't bear to live a life you cannot have_ , he'd told her in those precious few minutes they'd had alone. _I will devote myself to the Seven and if there is a way to free you from this marriage I will find it. I swear it by the old gods and the new._

She stares at herself in the mirror, meticulously dabbing on the tinted powder that has been her most faithful companion these many years. She'd long since stopped expecting Bonifer to find her the solution he spoke of, but every now and then she still thinks of him. Does he remember what he said to her? Did he ever try to write to her? To speak with her? Does he care? Did he _ever_ care? Or did he just see her title and her beauty and say the words she wanted to hear? Was he ever the nice boy she thought or was he cruel like all the rest of them?

Rhaella clenches her hands together and breathes.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

 _Don't let Aerys take him from you_ , she commands. _Don't submit._

She already has so few untainted memories, she couldn't stand to have Bonifer be ruined too. Not him. She can't even bring herself to say his name aloud, so scared is she that somehow Aerys will find out and punish her for it.

So she keeps him in her heart, her might-have-been, her what-if. With Aerys as her husband not even her own body is hers to keep, but Bonifer is. She will keep him safe, her secret, her dream, and she dares to hope that maybe he has kept her hidden away just the same, his lost princess waiting to be saved.


	31. Aegon x Margaery

_For a number meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** 32, Aegon and Margaery_

* * *

 _32\. open your eyes_

"My queen, we must speak about contingencies," says the Grand Maester. "I have done all I can for the fever, and—"

"No." Margaery glares up at him from where she sits by Aegon's bed. She knows she must look a sight, but for the last three days his health has declined, and she hasn't felt like eating, much less painting her face and having a bath drawn. "I refuse to speak as if my husband is already dead. He is your _king_ and I will not suffer your insubordination."

Maester Perwyn lowers his head in contrition, but nevertheless continues, "Forgive me. I wish I did not have to broach such matters, however we _are_ faced with the possibility of making a difficult decision. Your son—"

"Is a prince scarcely nine years old and will not be a king for many a year yet," she snaps. "Now go, or else I shall have you arrested for conspiring to commit treason."

He complies, though not without looking like he wants to protest. When he's finally gone, Margaery lets out a shaky breath, allowing herself to show weakness now that there is no one to see. She looks down at the still figure on the bed. He is deathly pale, as he has been for weeks, and she has to place her hand on his chest to make sure he's still breathing, that his heart still beats.

The fever had ravaged the city, and despite the small council's urges for Aegon to flee to safety, he had refused to abandon his subjects. Although her good-sister had wanted to stay as well, that was something Aegon refused to countenance. He had commanded Margaery away, but ultimately she had convinced him that the people must have a queen to look up to, a show of unity.

For all that, she is depressingly _alone_. Rhaenys and the children had retreated to Winterfell, Margaery's ladies to Highgarden; hardly anyone is left, save for the essential castle attendants. And Queen Elia. She had remained behind, at least. Aegon hadn't even tried to make her leave, for he knew it would do no good. Margaery had been afraid that the fever would take her good-mother as quickly as it took the young or the old, but so far the gods have been merciful. Margaery wonders every day how the queen can manage to look so strong and composed when her only son is lying unresponsive in his sickbed.

Where his mother and Margaery herself have avoided the contagion, Aegon has not been so lucky.

For so long he had seemed unaffected, and then in the span of only a few days, he had gone from a cough to a chill to _this_. He looks like death itself now, not waking no matter how much Margaery begs, no matter what the maester puts down his throat or massages into his limbs.

The worst part is that she knows Maester Perwyn is right. She _should_ be thinking about what happens if Aegon doesn't recover. But knowing such a thing and _doing_ it...she can't bring herself to even consider such a thing. Their son is so very, very young, and she fears the bidding war for regency that could result. Queen Elia had been accepted as regent for Aegon, but not without a drag-out fight and not without scrutiny or concessions.

In her darkest moments, she wonders if the gods are punishing her for not loving her husband these many years. He is a good man, a better father, and a dear friend, but _love_ had never quite been something they had accomplished. At least, it hadn't been, but ever since the fever hit him, she's felt...something. This crushing ache in her chest, this consuming _terror_. Not just for the father of her children or the king, but for _Aegon_. For Aegon, who listens to her and values her counsel, who gifts her books he thinks she'd like, who makes sure she finds her pleasure when they lie together, who lets her soothe him through his anxiety attacks. Is it love she feels now? Are the gods punishing her anyway for not feeling this sooner? Or is it not love at all? Is it just fear for the future? She doesn't know. She doesn't know much of anything anymore.

"Don't leave me," she whispers as she takes his hand in hers. "Please. Aegon, I need you. We _all_ need you."

He doesn't wake and, resigned, she snuffs out the candles and climbs up onto his bed to nestle beside him. She prays for the gods to lend him some of her health, prays for their children, prays for the realm, prays for _them_.


	32. Myrcella x Trystane

_For a number meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** myrcella x trystane aged up and 34 would be cool_

* * *

 _34\. good enough_

"What do you think?" Myrcella looks at herself in the mirror this way and that, scrutinizing everything from the diadem on her head to the color of her shoes. Rosamund straightens up from where she'd been fastening the last of the buttons on Myrcella's dress and kisses her on the cheek.

"You look beautiful, my lady, as usual. You have nothing to fear."

"Oh, very well. I just want everything to be perfect."

"It will be," Rosie insists. "You have a perfect dress and a perfect man, hm?"

Myrcella smiles despite herself, thinking of Trys. When she'd been brought to Sunspear as a child, the concept of marriage had seemed so peculiar that she hadn't spent much time considering it. She'd always enjoyed Trys's company, but it wasn't until they were both past their fourteenth year that she'd started to fully understand what they would be to one another. He had grown unsure over the last few years, to her dismay, but remains sweet as ever, and handsome where his brother is plain. She had called him her friend for a decade, and now, today, she would call him her husband.

"Give me a moment, will you?" she asks Rosie.

"As you wish, princess." Rosie curtseys and leaves her be, ringing silence following her departure. Myrcella tries to find something to fix about her appearance, but Rosie was right: there isn't a thread out of place. Her stomach does a flip. _She_ thinks she looks pretty, but would Trys? He's bound by betrothal to marry her, but what if he isn't satisfied? What if–

The door opens, and Myrcella sighs, "Rosie, I thought I asked you to give me a moment." She turns to the door and finds that it most definitely _isn't_ Rosie. "Trys! What are you–it's bad luck to see me the day of the wedding!"

"I'm sorry," he says, looking just that. "I–I panicked."

"Panicked?" He comes toward her and, yes, she does see the fright in his dark eyes, and all thoughts of misfortune flee from her head. She takes his trembling hands in hers and asks, "What panics you? Is there a storm coming or something?"

"No, no, the weather is fine, everything's fine…" He looks her up and down as if only just noticing her gown. "You look nice."

"Thank you. But I still don't understand. What's wrong?"

"You deserve better than me," he says in a rush. "You're the daughter of the king and I'm just the third child of a lord, and you're so beautiful and kind and–"

"Hush." She puts two fingers on his lips to stop his rambling. "You are everything I could ever want, Trys, and I mean that. Most ladies in this world get saddled with husbands who are cruel or twice their age or drunkards or disrespectful, but you're none of that. I know what kind of man you are, and I…" She blushes bright red but finds the courage to continue. "I'm rather fond of you."

"Fond" isn't the right word, not exactly, but what courage she'd had quickly retreats. "You are?"

"Very much so." She laughs then. "And here I thought I was nervous."

"You?" Trys asks. "Why?"

"I don't know," she confesses. "You're a prince of Dorne. Your kingdom resisted the dragons for a hundred and fifty years. Your women are allowed to fight and rule and your house was founded by Princess _Nymeria_. Who am I to join that legacy? Who am I to follow Ari and your lady mother?"

Trys gives her a lopsided smile. "My wife? Or…or, well, _almost_."

"It appears neither of us knows what we're doing," she says, flopping down on one of the couches. Trystane follows her, though more gracefully. "Or where we go from here. But…but maybe we can figure it out together. What do you say?"

He cups her cheeks and presses a soft kiss to her lips. She's sure he's smeared her powder and smudged her lip stain, but she doesn't care. When he pulls back, her heart melts at the look in his eyes. "That doesn't sound so bad."


	33. Robb x Rhaenys V

_For a number meme._

 _ **bruceselina asked:** robb x rhaenys, no. 6?_

 _ **Anon asked:** robb/rhaenys, 4_

* * *

 _4\. irresistible_  
 _6\. tongue-tied_

To say his camp has been in a state for the last four days would be a rather large understatement. Everything had been going as well as could be expected until the morning she had shown up with an honor guard and thrown it all into chaos.

Rhaenys Targaryen, Princess of Dragonstone, back from the dead. Even now, even despite her proof, he has a hard time believing it.

Harder still is trying to avoid dwelling on the subject of alliance, of what that would mean. She has no siblings nor any available cousins, which means there's only _her_ , and he knows all too well that in this world _alliance_ means _marriage_. Had he not done the very same with his uncle? Betrothed to a Frey, and that was just in exchange for crossing the Twins. In exchange for an _army_ , surely the same would be required, this time of Robb himself.

It would be easier if she were cruel or old or ugly. At least then he would be able to concentrate. At least then she would be nothing more than a business transaction. Instead, she is nearly of an age with him, she has obeyed the rules of engagement to the letter, and even Grey Wind had inexplicably taken a shine to her.

And her _beauty_ …

She plagues his every thought. It shames him, but he can't stop it. The way her long hair falls to her back, bound in gold rings; her smooth, golden skin shown to him only in glimpses through the sheer sleeves of her gown; her sharp, deep, dark eyes that show intelligence and hide fear; her hard elegance that had enraptured him the minute he saw her. He wonders if the first Rhaenys was the same: threatening, and yet agonizingly alluring.

 _You're a king, not a lecher_ , he keeps having to remind himself, _and she is twice a princess, not some camp follower to be ogled._

Nevertheless, no matter how much he berates himself, the more he thinks about not thinking about her, the worse it gets. Until finally one night, exasperated and disgusted with himself, he throws aside the covers and gets dressed, only grabbing a knife as an afterthought. He trusts his bannermen implicitly, and Princess Rhaenys's guards had thus far shown no discourtesy, let alone a mind for murder, but better to be safe than careless.

Robb wends his way through the castle down to the Trident with the idea to submerge himself and let the water scourge his head and body of his impropriety. He kneels down on the bank and splashes his face with cool water, cups some over his head until it trickles down his shirt and soaks his flushed skin. Just as he's pondering going for an actual swim, he hears a twig snap and then his arm is wrenched around and sharp metal presses against his throat.

"I could have killed you just now." It is a woman's voice, a familiar one, and with only those seven words, all his efforts with the river are rendered useless. "You brought neither sword nor your wolf? Some soldier you are."

"A soldier does not expect to be attacked in his own camp, Your Grace." He feels her reach down to his hip to disarm him of his dagger, and he can't help but reflect on the fact that her hand comes within inches of… _elsewhere_ , and he begs the old gods and the new that she doesn't notice what her mere presence is doing to him. "But it…it seems I am at your mercy. Pray tell, what are your demands?"

"I haven't decided," she says. "What would you say is a suitable punishment for depriving a princess of her solitude?"

"Perhaps you've deprived me of mine."

"Why would _you_ need such a thing? You have everything."

Robb desperately tries to think of something to say. He can't exactly tell her the real reason he's here, that she's the one for his midnight excursion. "I…well, I…" _Think, damn you!_ "I miss my father."

It's true enough—sometimes he feels as though the grief will swallow him whole—but tonight, grief had not been his motivation.

"We are both without one now, it seems." She releases him without fanfare, apparently done with her games. "Mine died here, in this very river. They say rubies from his breastplate still wash up now and again."

He turns around to face her, and wishes he hadn't. Her hair is for once unbound, flowing in thick curls about her shoulders, she's dressed in thin silks that he's fairly sure should be worn _beneath_ a gown, not _as_ a gown, and there's enough danger in her expression that indicates quite clearly she _could_ kill him if she so chose just as she'd promised.

 _Seven save me._

"Y-Yes, I have heard the same," he stutters. "I am sorry for your loss."

"I'm not," she says, stowing her dagger. "Not really. I hardly remember him, and what he did to my family and to the realm, was unforgivable."

He blinks, momentarily taken aback. "He was still your father."

For an instant—and only an instant—a flash of vulnerability slides across her face. "Yes, he was." She sighs. "I suppose that is my weakness."

"We all have weaknesses."

"And what is yours? What vexes the King in the North?"

"Dornish princesses, perhaps," he quips. He is grateful his voice is steady; inside, he is a jumble of nerves.

"Hmm. You are one man among thousands, then. Wantons, cheats, beguiling seductresses, that's what they call us, and yet given the chance they'd bed us all the same. The ultimate conquest, and the easiest."

"Vexation is not the same thing. I do not think of you in the way you describe."

"No? Your breeches say otherwise." Mortified, he searches for something to say, _anything_ , but then she runs her hand lightly down his chest and leans up to whisper in his ear. "Worry not. Your eye is not the only one that has wandered."

He stares at her in disbelief. "I—what?"

"I shall see you on the morrow, Robb Stark."

She leaves him alone on the riverbank with a parting smirk, and once she's out of earshot he lets out a groan. Her words have set off his imagination worse than before, and he can't help but envision her lying in her chambers, one hand on her breast, the other sliding up her thigh and reaching beneath her shift, his name on her lips…

Without even bothering to strip, he hurries into the river and submerges himself head to toe, wondering which would torture him most: drowning, or having to face her in the morning.


	34. Arthur, Rhaenys

_**Anon asked:** I wish you would write a fic where Rhaenys survives the sack and Arthur takes her to oversea and raises her as his own_

* * *

 _Find Rhaenys. Keep her safe, and I will forgive it all._

Her words, her mission, they're all that keep his feet moving, his blade swinging. He has to focus on the words, because if he doesn't, he sees her, bloody and dying, her son dashed against the wall, the Mountain's head halfway across the room. He was too late, too _fucking_ late, and now look what's happened. He could have saved them all, yet now there is only Rhaenys, and he doesn't even know where she is.

At least, not until he hears the hissing yowl, and then the scream. It's coming from Rhaegar's old chambers–he should have _known_ –and all he has to see is the knife before he's running the man through with his sword and Rhaenys is throwing herself into his arms. She asks after her mother, after the baby, and Arthur can't speak. He's taken more lives than he cares to count, has made mistakes that he's sure will land him in the seven hells, but he can't tell this little girl that her family is dead, he hasn't the strength.

She knows, though, of course she does. She must have _heard_ them below her, heard what happened…

 _Find Rhaenys. Keep her safe, and I will forgive it all._

She grabs Balerion and he grabs her, and he doesn't know where he can go–not home, he can't go to Dorne, he can't put them in danger–and he doesn't know how to raise a child and he doesn't _deserve_ to and they'll be hunted from now until the end of his days.

But she had made him swear, and so he will find a way. He can save Rhaenys, he _must_. Gods damn him, he _will_.


	35. Elia, Arthur

_**Anon asked:** I wish you would write a conversation between queen regent Elia and a returning Arthur over the abduction, Aerys threatening Elia, & the Tower of Joy being in Dorne. Assume Rhaegar and Robert are dead._

* * *

She's put this off long enough, and she's commanded herself to be calm and detached, but it doesn't hurt any less when he's escorted into the throne room. Without his Kingsguard armor and his sword, he seems… _less_. She hadn't wanted to put him in the black cells, but failing that she hadn't known what to do with him either; Doran had suggested confining him to a room, and so she had.

She straightens her posture on the throne, trying to ignore how uncomfortable it is. Aegon the Conqueror had constructed it to be so–and had succeeded. Arthur only glances at her briefly before going to one knee.

"I presume you know why you are here," she says without preamble. "I have filled six Kingsguard positions, but the seventh…"

Oberyn had pressed her to strip Arthur of his white cloak, and Elia had agreed his transgressions merited at least that, yet she hasn't brought herself to do it. "I submit myself to your judgment."

For some reason, his obeisance irritates her. Since they were children, he'd never shied away from voicing his opinions, and that hadn't changed when she became Rhaegar's wife either. For all that she'd planned on being levelheaded, she realizes that what she truly wants is to _argue_. Even the remaining rebels had been courteous enough, not to mention the sycophantic loyalists.

She turned to the guards at the doors and commands, "Leave us." They hesitate, but one glare from her has them doing as she says. Once the heavy doors bang shut, Elia descends from the throne and stands in front of him. "Oh, for gods' sakes, get up. The time for standing on ceremony is over."

He looks up at her and slowly gets to his feet, for once unsure. "What is it you wish of me?"

"I want your _head_ ," she snarls. "There are two rebel soldiers on my son's Kingsguard now, and do you know why? Because they swore an oath to their leader, and they saw it through to the end. But you?" Her hands clench into fists at her sides. "My uncle gave you your knighthood, my mother opened our home to you. You swore yourself forever to House Martell, and at the first opportunity you betray us. Rhaegar may have started all this, but you were right there by his side. What do I wish of you? I wish to hear one reason why I shouldn't let Oberyn poison your drink the way he longs to."

There is true shame in the violet eyes she knows so well, but it means little to her now. "I have no reasons," he says after a moment. "All you say is true."

She knows she shouldn't, she knows it undermines her authority, but the frustration takes over. With a war's worth of anger, she cracks her hand across his face. He looks hurt, but not particularly surprised.

"Then _why_?" she hisses. Hot tears spring to her eyes, much to her chagrin. "What did I ever do to you? We have been friends our entire lives, Arthur, or I _thought_ we were. And once we were almost—"

 _Once we were almost more than that._

She can plainly see he too remembers that one night so long ago, the one they'd never talked about, but at the very least he seems to know now is not the time. "You did nothing."

"So explain it to me!" Her voice echoes in the cavernous throne room. "Was it Rhaegar's bloody prophecy? Is that it? You believe that nonsense?"

"No, I don't. I…I feared for the Lady Lyanna. I feared what Rhaegar might do if it came down to it."

Elia recoils. "She entranced you, too? Rhaegar wasn't bad enough, you lusted after her as well?"

"Seven hells, what do you take me for?" he snaps. _Finally_ , she thinks. _Maybe there is blood in his veins after all._

"Well, some job you did protecting her. Pregnant and dead, that's how she ended up."

"I didn't—I was away retrieving supplies when Rhaegar got her with child," he says. "By the time I returned, there was nothing to be done."

"And what about us?" she demands. "What about me? What about Rhaenys, about Aegon? We were, what, acceptable losses?"

" _No_. I thought you'd be safe, I never expected—"

"You knew what Aerys was capable of! How could you have not expected it?"

"What do you want me to say? That I regret what I did? Of course I regret it. That I should have done things differently? Yes, I should have. And I'll spend the rest of my days trying to atone for that. If it is my life you want, I will walk to the headman's block myself. Is that what you want?"

 _Is it?_ It would satisfy Oberyn, to be sure, and there would be a certain catharsis in it for her, too. But does she truly _want_ him dead? She doesn't know. Seven _hells_ , she doesn't know. She turns away from him and shuts her eyes, praying for clarity. This should be easy, this decision. He'd committed treason, to the crown and to her, and there is only one acceptable punishment for such a crime. _Please_ , she begs the gods, _tell me how to proceed._

"Elia." His hand brushes her shoulder; barely, as though he's half-afraid she'll pull out a dagger and slash his throat right here and now.

"It's _Your Grace_ ," she snaps, whirling back around. "And don't touch me. Don't you _dare_."

He holds up his hands in supplication. "I'm sorry."

He looks utterly defeated, utterly _lost_ , much like she feels. She lets out a breath and murmurs, "How could I ever trust you? How could I entrust my children to you when you left us to the Mad King's whims?"

"I do not ask for your forgiveness."

She knows what Mother would do. Exile, or imprisonment at the least. But Father…

"I won't kill you," she says finally. "Nor keep you in a cell. For Ash, not for you."

"And the Kingsguard?"

"I don't know," she answers. "Be grateful your heart still beats."

"I can assure you, my queen, it does."


	36. Arianne x Arys

_For a number meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** #48 arianne x arys? please_

* * *

 _48\. shackles_

"This isn't the only reason you went out with me, is it?"

Arianne pauses what she's doing to roll her eyes. "No, Arys, access to your handcuffs is not the only reason I went out with you." The sound of the cuffs locking into place around the bedpost is satisfying, made even more so by the strain in Arys's body as she straddles his hips. "But it does help. I've not been with a cop before."

"But—"

She grasps him to shut him up, and can't decide if she's disappointed or gratified at how easy it is. She can't say she particularly misses his talking, though. He's a good enough lay, but his forte does not lie in stimulating conversation.

He also has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth, usually complaining about women who have casual sex while at the same time continuing this relationship (if it can even be called that). She'd have moved on a while ago, but he's endearing in a doofus sort of way, and he's convenient. Besides, she's leaving the city in a week anyway—if she can wrangle herself some free handcuffs out of the deal, she'll take it.

She gives him a wicked smile. "Now, officer, let's see how durable these are."


	37. Elia, Rhaegar II

_**Anon asked:** Elia & Rhaegar meeting after Elia cuts a deal with the rebels for baby Aegon to be king offering up the 'lovers'. Rhaegar gets to go to Wall while Lyanna wherever._

* * *

He's brought to her in chains, which she feels is appropriate. She had never had shackles around her wrists, but had nonetheless felt like a prisoner these many years, and to see Rhaegar supplicant before her is vindictively satisfying. As the father of her children, she had still had a speck of goodwill for him, but that soon vanishes when she sees he has the audacity to look _betrayed_.

"Thank you, Ser Brynden, Ser Barristan," she tells the pair of Kingsguard.

Rebel and loyalist together, such was her edict. Barristan had not been pleased, but then, he wasn't pleased by her deal either despite the fact that it made her son king and salvaged what Rhaegar and Aerys had ruined. The Kingsguard step back and Elia peers down at her husband from her perch on the throne. It was to be his, once. Not anymore.

"I did not expect this from you," Rhaegar says. His voice is hoarse, his hair is lank, his clothes covered in dirt, and it vaguely occurs to her she'd never seen him disheveled before. "I never expected you would act against us."

"Us?" she replies. "You mean you and the crown? I have no loyalties to your father, or to you. My only loyalty is to my family. Unbowed, unbent, unbroken, those are my words, whether you forgot them or not. I was hardly about to let the people I love be endangered because of your actions. The rebels' cause was just, they gave us shelter, and, now, the throne. You threatened the downfall of your house, of me, of our children. I don't regret my choice, not for one second."

"What is it you intend to do with me?" His mask is flawless, even if his appearance is not; she wonders if he's angry, or sad, or anything at all. She's never been able to read him, and this day is no exception.

"I should execute you. No one would begrudge me for it." It would be a show of strength, a declaration that she would not tolerate threats. "But for Rhaenys's sake, and hers alone, I will not. I want my daughter to come to terms with you in her own time, and she won't be able to do that if you're dead. She's too young to realize what all has happened, but she won't always be. Exile is too good for you, however, and so I have decided to send you to the Wall. You shall have a friend there in Maester Aemon, but considering the Lord Commander is a man of my lands, and several of your new brothers will be men confined there because of you…I suspect your time there will not be enjoyable."

"The Wall," he repeats. "You would deprive me of my own children?"

Elia's hands tighten on the arms of the throne. "You dare put blame on _me_?" she growls. "Look to yourself if you want a villain, or your father. You don't deserve Rhaenys and Aegon. You _abandoned_ them." She nods to the Kingsguard. "Sers, if you will? We're done here."

Ser Brynden and Ser Barristan oblige, forcing Rhaegar to his feet. "Wait," he objects. "What about Lyanna?"

The name once made her blind with rage. Now, after speaking with the girl and with Arthur, such is no longer the case. "She will return to Winterfell," she says. "It was fortunate we beat back the loyalists so quickly, or else it might have been too late."

"Too late?"

"For the moon tea, of course," she says. "What, did you think the fifteen-year-old child whom you trapped in a tower would want to be a mother? Of your bastard, no less? You may have been foolish enough to get her with child, but she was perfectly glad to take up my offer, especially since I agreed to dissolve her betrothal on top of it. That was why she left with you in the first place, is it not? Because you promised her that? I have done what you did not, though Robert Baratheon is not happy about it."

"You…she is no longer pregnant?" For the first time, his veneer slips. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"I saved a girl from something she did not want and, perhaps, her life," Elia replies. "Your obsession with prophecy is a madness in you, Rhaegar. I was not about to let you drag the Stark girl down with you."

"The prophecy is _true_."

"Oh? You know that, do you? I did not realize you could see the future."

"The scrolls—"

"Are thousands of years old, written in a language that was translated centuries ago, from a prophet that may never have existed in the first place. It is hubris to think you have read them correctly, and I won't allow my family, or Lady Lyanna, to suffer for it. No, I've heard enough from you." She leans forward in her seat, taking one final look at him. "I _do_ hope you enjoy the cold."


	38. Elia x Rhaegar II

_For a number meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** 10, 24. elia martell and rhaegar_

* * *

 _10\. not wearing that_  
 _24\. my child_

"Over my dead body will she be wearing this monstrosity."

"It was my mother's. And hers before her. It's tradition."

Elia holds up the dress, wincing at the overabundance of dragon motifs, red and black fabric, and gemstones. "Yes, and it shows," she says. "Mayhaps this was acceptable forty years ago, but now? Rhaegar, we are having our portraits painted, we can't possibly have this displayed for all time."

"My mother would be overjoyed to see her in it, and these days she doesn't have much to be overjoyed about."

"No, she doesn't." She thinks of the poor queen, trapped in a marriage with the most horrific beast Elia has ever known.

"Well, perhaps a compromise is in order. We'll put her in it when we present her to the court, and then something less ostentatious for the portrait."

"That's agreeable," Elia shrugs. "At least no one will be able to say she doesn't represent the Targaryens."

"It's settled then." Rhaegar glances at the dress, then back to her. "It really is awful, isn't it?"

Elia snickers. "The _worst_."


	39. Rhaenys x Willas

_For a number meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Rhaenys Targaryen and Willas Tyrell in 14/39 ;)_

* * *

 _14\. first kiss_  
 _39\. secret admirer_

She doesn't know what to expect from the heir to Highgarden. She's aware that Uncle Oberyn has a regular correspondence with him, and that his family are staunch loyalists, yet the Reach has been bitter enemies of her mother's family for millennia, and that's a hard obstacle to overcome. Not to mention their ridiculous focus on pomp and circumstance, their tourneys and frivolity far too excessive for Rhaenys's taste. To her, it reeks of showmanship rather than actual chivalry or talent. Uncle Oberyn and Uncle Arthur had both told her as much—though they participate in tourneys to keep the rust off, never do they show their true mettle, nor how they truly fight. With the Reachers...Rhaenys has a feeling tourneys are _all_ they know.

Garlan Tyrell, at least, has an honorable and skilled reputation, something that comes from even several Dornishmen that have faced him in the list or met him at feasts, but of Willas there is not much to go on. Oh, his injury is talked about plenty, but Rhaenys doesn't care about any of that. So what if he has a limp? She wants to know if he's kind, if he has good humor, if he won't disparage her countrymen and thus disparage her, if he won't try to stamp out her outspokenness.

He had sent her letters since their betrothal was announced and had seemed cordial in them, but letters can mask a man's true nature, and perhaps the letters hadn't been written by Willas at all. She just doesn't know.

And now she stands in the entrance hall of the seat that will one day be his, awaiting his arrival. He is punctual, which she does appreciate. He leans on a cane to balance, but otherwise shows no evidence of illness. He's handsome, too, she can't help but notice, though not as much as Garlan, and a far cry from his youngest brother, Loras. Not that that makes a difference. People say Father is the most beautiful man in the realm, and look what happened. Beauty does not always equal goodness, she had learned that lesson well.

"Princess," he greets with a warm smile. "I trust your journey went well?"

"Yes, the seas were kind, my lord."

"It pleases me to hear it." He presses a kiss to her hand, his eyes never leaving hers.

* * *

She meets his only sister at the feast that night, a maid three, nearly four, years her junior. Margaery already shows the promise of a fair visage indeed, although there is a shrewdness in the way she speaks and the purposefully dainty way she gestures that leads Rhaenys to believe there is far more to her than most would believe.

"Willas is enamored with you," she says, as one might divulge a particularly scandalous secret. "Your letters had him smiling for days each time he received one."

"Oh?" She glances down the table to where Willas sits and watches him for a moment as he converses with some Reacher lord she doesn't know. "He showed only courtesy to me."

"Well, of course," says Margaery. "Willas...he's not Garlan, or Loras. Not as far as the ladies of the court are concerned. He is not ashamed of his injury, but nor does he suffer pity. I would imagine he wasn't sure whether you would be one of those people."

"His concern is understandable."

And it is—how often had she wanted to scream at all the vapid ladies who pretended to comprehend what she and her family had gone through? All that cooing and those empty platitudes? But at least her wounds are invisible; Willas's are on display to everyone he meets.

Margaery's expression softens. "He's a good man, you know. Your marriage will not be a bad one, I promise."

She doesn't know Willas, not one bit, and she doesn't know Margaery either. Yet all the same, a flicker of hope fills her chest that maybe the girl is right after all. Highgarden is insufferable, but perhaps her new husband will not be.


	40. Robb x Rhaenys VI

_**bbnightengale asked:** If you do prompts, do you do modern ones? Like maybe a Robb/Rhaenys of that number via airdrop post you reblogged?_

* * *

" _How_ is there traffic at two in the afternoon?" She's been sitting in gridlock for an hour now, with no signs of improvement. She doesn't know if there's an accident or what, but if things don't start moving soon, she's going to lose it. She already had a miserable day at work, and her patience is wearing thin.

The only part of this that's bearable is her godsend of a rearview mirror. The driver of the car behind her is a guy her age, and utterly _gorgeous_. Auburn curls, blue eyes, the jawline of a model, and probably the body to match. No ring, either. She's tried to play it cool, but she's pretty sure he's noticed how often her eyes flick up to the mirror; still, if he notices, that means _he's_ looking, too, so. Pot, meet kettle.

All of a sudden she sees the brake lights in front of her turn off, and the cars ahead actually start to move, temporarily taking her mind off the guy. She rolls forward a full ten feet and then–nope. Traffic stops again. She lets out a string of curses and slumps down in her seat, desperately trying to relieve a cramp in her leg.

Her cell phone trills, and she fully expects it to be her mother wondering where she is. The drive home from college normally only takes two hours, and now Rhaenys is on three-and-counting. She glances at the screen and frowns. It's an AirDrop, one decidedly _not_ from her mother.

 _Robb Stark would like to share a note._

Despite knowing it could very well be a dick pic from some perv, her curiosity has her accepting.

 _To the girl staring at me from the pickup…hope this is you._

There's a number below, and Rhaenys nearly drops her phone. She twists around in her seat to look through the back window, and sure enough, the driver behind her is looking straight at her and shrugs. _Goddamn it._

This whole thing is ridiculous, she doesn't even know the guy, he could be a serial killer waiting for his next victim, but…well, it'd be a way to pass the time, right? It's not like anyone's going anywhere anytime soon. Jumping in with both feet, she drafts a new iMessage and hopes for the best.

 _Nice to meet you, Robb Stark. I'm Rhaenys._


	41. Rhaella, Aerys

_**Anon asked:** an AU where Aerys II pulls an Aerys I and refuses to sleep with 12 year old Rhaella after they are forced to wed. He is a Good Big Brother and will get the marriage annulled when he can. Rhaella needs someone who actually loves and looks after her._

 _[This is not quite the prompt, because I can't see Aerys getting away with an unconsummated marriage the way Aerys I did, but it's in the same spirit, I think.]_

* * *

"Simpering little Rhaella? Father, you _can't_."

Rhaella listens with her ear pressed against the door, her heart pounding. Mother and Father had always doted on Aerys; she'd never heard them get in an argument before. Though, of course, she'd never heard this marriage proclamation before either.

"Aerys, you must. It is foretold. What is your qualm? Marrying brother to sister is tradition in our family."

"In the last century, it's only been _you_. Besides, Rhaella's _twelve_ , Father, I won't marry a _child_. Just look at her, with all her dolls, and her stupid knights, and her weakness. I won't marry… _that_."

"You will," says Father, using the voice he rarely uses but which always scares her. "I am your father, and I am to be your king. If I decree it, it is so."

"But you're not the king _yet_ ," Aerys protests. "Grandfather is. What does he say about all this?"

She can't see him, but she can imagine Father's face going hard. "Your grandfather has washed his hands of his children. He cares not."

 _No_ , Rhaella thinks in horror. _No, not Grandfather. He can't!_

He and Grandmother have been so good to her, had shown that love was important, too, not just alliances. They'd let Uncle Duncan and Aunt Jenny follow their hearts, and Uncle Daeron, and even Mother and Father. Why would he not let Rhaella do the same? Not that anyone has her heart, not yet, but one day they might! She can't imagine being married to Aerys. He's her _brother_ , and he pulls her hair and calls her names and even if he were nice, she doesn't want to be married _now_. She doesn't want to have a husband and she doesn't want to have children, not when she's half a child herself. Aerys is right about that, at least.

"Then Grandfather is weaker-willed than I thought. But it doesn't matter. I don't care what you say, I'm not marrying her."

"You _will_ ," Father repeats. "Some things are bigger than you. This is one of them."

She runs to her room in tears.

* * *

A hand over her mouth wakes her in the middle of the night, and her eyes fly open in fear. "Hush, damn you." Aerys's long hair is pulled back, a hood over his head.

"What are you doing?" she whispers back.

"Leaving," he says. "Father's got it in his head to marry us, and I'd rather die than be wed to _you_."

"Where will you go?"

"Somewhere. Anywhere. What's it to you?"

"Nothing," she says. "Are you sure? Father will send men after you."

"Let him," Aerys shrugs. "When someone asks, you're to say I wanted time to myself and will be gone hunting for three days. I've done it before. By the time they realize I've not done so, I'll be long gone."

The gravity of what he's doing is slowly dawning on her, and she's sure there'll be repercussions even if she doesn't yet know what they are, perhaps even repercussions on _her_ , but if Aerys is gone, then they can't be married no matter how much Mother and Father rage.

She nods, and then darts her hand out to touch his. "Be careful, brother."

"I will."

He hurries out of her room, a silver shadow. She wonders if it had been a dream, the next morning, except then a servant bursts into her room and asks if she knows where the prince is. _He's done it!_ she thinks to herself, victorious. _He really did it._

"Oh, he said something about going hunting," she says. Her voice is steady, the lie easy. "He'll be back in a few days."

The servant believes her, and when she's alone in her room once more, she smiles.


	42. Elia x Arthur II

_**Anon asked:** can you do a prompt where elia is happy & safe in the free cities with her babies (maybe w/ arthur too) ? i just want her to be happy_

 _ **Another anon asked:** I love your answer to Elia & Arthur escaping to Essos. Can I get a happily ever after in Norvos with Dany & Viserys too?_

* * *

She hadn't known what to make of this place when they'd first arrived as bedraggled refugees. It's her good-sister's home, yet she hadn't learned much about Mellario's past before she herself was whisked off to be wed to Rhaegar and even less about her family. They had been six coming to plead at the gates of Norvos, hoping and praying that Mellario's name would be enough. She couldn't send a letter telling her family where they were, she couldn't put them in danger, but if not Norvos, then Elia had had no clue where they could go. She'd known Oberyn was somewhere in Essos, but had no way of contacting him, and even Arthur had only been so far as Tyrosh to put down a short-lived fracas on Aerys's command.

Gods, that seems like another life now. It was another life.

She stands on the balcony and smiles as the cool mountain breeze rustles her skirts, Norvos's bells clanging in the distance. It's still chillier than she'd like, it's certainly no Sunspear, and working as a seamstress is not something she'd ever thought she'd be doing, but she's _free_.

She feels him slip up behind her, and so it's no surprise when his arms come around her waist. He doesn't say anything, just lets them linger in silence to watch the sunrise. She does bring him down for a kiss though, chaste but with the promise of more later, and just as he's sliding his hands up her blouse, they hear the patter of feet across the hall.

"The children are awake," Elia laughs. Arthur makes a petulant sound of protest and reaches for her again, but she swats him away. "We're going to traumatize them. _Again._ "

"The door's barred."

 _"Arthur."_

"Oh, very well. You can make it up to me tonight then."

Elia scowls. "What am I, your courtesan?"

"I never said I wouldn't _reciprocate_."

His grin is so salacious that she feels her body flush. She has half a mind to give in, to take what they can get before they're interrupted, but then she remembers which day it is. "Dany turns six today."

"I know. Hard to believe we've been here this long," says Arthur. "Do you miss home?"

"In a way. I miss my brothers, and the weather, but…" She thinks of little effervescent Daenerys, of Rhaenys who never leaves Dany's side, of Aegon and his books, of Viserys whose nightmares have finally begun to recede, of the view outside her window and the friends she's made here. She thinks of Arthur, who had for two years been nothing but a protector, until one night when they'd decided not to deny themselves any longer. "But this is home, too. Maybe one day we can return to Dorne, but I think we've made a good life here, don't you? The children are happy."

"And you?" Arthur asks. "Are you happy?"

She tilts her head up to look at him. Despite the years that have elapsed, he looks younger than he ever did in Aerys's service, and she wonders if the same has happened to her. Norvos is colder than Dragonstone, and the air is thinner, yet she feels healthier here than she did on that island trapped in a marriage she never wanted.

She kisses him softly, slowly, and decides that's answer enough.


	43. Arianne x Viserys

_For a number meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** 8\. Arianne x Viserys the AU where he grew up expecting to be the prince consort of Dorne only for Rhaegar and Aegon to unexpectedly kick the bucket & he gets to be king which he Not Trained Not Ready & Terrified._

* * *

 _8\. "Please, just—stay. Please."_

It's queer; she remembers the way the dining hall looked that morning better than she does the exact wording of the letter or even the expression on Viserys's face as he read it. It had been one of the most pristine days in years, not a cloud in the sky yet the sun not too hot either, the ocean smooth rolling waves. The herald bringing the letter hadn't been odd either, for Viserys often received such things from the capital, mostly from Aunt Elia or his mother.

He had scanned it twice, his already pale face growing paler by the word. "What is it? Has something happened?" she'd asked him, before taking the letter from his hands to read it herself. It was in Princess Daenerys's hand, small and neat.

 _Dearest brother,_

 _As you know, King's Landing has been ravaged by disease these past weeks. They've closed the passes in Dorne so I trust you and Princess Arianne are well, but it has hit our family hard. You know our brother, he thought himself untouchable. He came down with the sickness and despite the maester's efforts, he did not recover. We, of course, had fled the city as soon as news of the affliction reached court, yet somehow...oh, Vis. It's even taken Aegon. I don't know how he contracted it, but it overtook him so quickly. The rest of us were spared, the gods only know why. Elia is inconsolable, even Rhaenys can't reach her. Mother, too._

 _Which is why I am the one who must write to you. The both of us will have time to grieve later, but right now we must be strong. With Rhaegar and Aegon gone, that means you are king, brother. Our cousin Lord Robert has been sheltering us at Storm's End until the illness has been cleared from the capital, but you must meet us here as soon as possible so we can begin preparations._

 _I am sorry. I know how fond you are of Dorne, but you must abandon it now. The realm needs you._

 _All my love,_  
 _Dany_

Arianne had had to read over it twice, too. Uncle Rhaegar had always been lukewarm and spent far too much time in the library, but cousin Aegon...tears had slipped down her cheeks as the full scope of the letter hit her. She'd only seen him just two moon turns ago; he had been _fine_ , he had been _healthy_ , his mother had been bemoaning how long his sandy hair had gotten, he'd let her borrow one of his favorite books about the Age of Heroes. How could he be _dead_?

* * *

It's been a week since the letter, six days since they boarded a ship to Storm's End, and they've been told they should arrive before long. Arianne heads down into the cabin they share and sits next to him on the bed, relaying the captain's announcement.

His response is dull, his voice quiet. "Good. Yes, all right."

The initial shock had slowly evaporated, but had left behind a cold, grieving resignation. She's not wanted to bring up her burning question, and she can't muster up the courage now either.

 _What does this mean for us?_ she wants to ask him.

With him king, custom would mean that she, as his betrothed, would become his queen. But if she's queen, then she has to give up Dorne, her birthright, the only thing she's truly wanted since she was a little girl. To be forced to give it to Quent, especially when what she'd get in return is ridiculed in a court both for being a woman and for being Dornish, it makes her stomach churn.

Except if she refuses, that means surely the betrothal would be broken off, which is almost as bad. She doesn't know what she feels for Viserys yet, but he's been one of her closest friends the past few years, and he's a good man who would make an excellent consort. And she knows how much he adores Sunspear, though that had taken everyone by surprise. He'd been perfectly content leaving the crown to Rhaegar and Aegon, and becoming Arianne's right hand instead.

Now that's all for naught. Whatever their betrothal will become, Viserys will no longer stay in Dorne. Turning down the kingship would mean it would pass to Rhaenys, and she shudders to think of how viciously the realm would oppose such a thing. Even if by some miracle she _were_ coronated as Queen Rhaenys, the First of Her Name, her reign would be hounded by men who sought to unseat her or make her life otherwise a hellish mess. She could handle it, of that Arianne has no doubt, but even the slightest mistake would be catastrophic. She knows Viserys knows that, though it doesn't make it any easier.

He clasps his hands together in his lap so tightly they turn white. "I shouldn't be here," he croaks. "This isn't my crown. It doesn't belong to me."

"It does. By law, it does."

"It should be Rhae's," he says, looking over at her with bloodshot eyes. "I'd gladly hand it all over, I'd never contest it. She's better at this than I am, Aunt Elia too. I don't know anything of being king."

"And that's what will help you," she says. "You're not entitled. You recognize your limits. You'll have people at your side, you won't have to do this alone."

"Will I have you?"

His eyes search hers, more vulnerable than she's ever seen him, and she has to avert her gaze. "I—Vis, I don't know. Dorne is my home, it's what I was born to rule. I want to marry you, I do, but if it means giving up my kingdom..."

"I know," Viserys sighs. "I can't ask it of you."

She leans over and kisses his cheek. "I will think about it at least. I owe you that much. And I won't leave your side while we're at Storm's End. I'll help you through all that I can, I promise."

He lets his head drop to her shoulder, and she slowly runs her fingers through his silver hair, praying to the old gods and the new for strength she hopes she has.


	44. Elia, Lysa

_**Anon asked:** Can ask for more Elia as queen regent? Maybe being kind to Lysa as another woman who got screwed over in life._

* * *

"I hope you understand my position, Lady Arryn," she says. The woman has said hardly two words so far, and Elia wishes she would just _speak_. "I had no qualms against your husband, and I know his cause was just. But all the same, he declared war against my son's kin, and were I to spare him, I would be telling lords that I will do nothing against people who may threaten Aegon's title in future. If there were another way, I would have taken it, and I'm sorry. I will of course arrange another marriage for you as befits your station, and the crown will pay the necessary dowry."

"Marriage?" Lady Lysa looks up at her, her blue eyes wide. She is near as pretty as her sister, and yet there's a meekness there that Elia had never sensed in the new Lady of Winterfell. "To...to whom?"

"I haven't a clue," Elia says honestly. "It wouldn't be for a while yet. There is the requisite mourning period and, of course, however long you require for your personal grief."

"Grief?" Lysa shakes her head. "I do not grieve in truth, I-it was my father's wish that I marry Lord Arryn, not mine. He traded me away in exchange for an army."

"I see," says Elia, surprised by her vehemence. "Then there is some common ground between us, it seems. I, too, was married against my will." She studies the young woman in front of her and quirks her head. "Is there a man you would marry instead? Or perhaps you do not desire a marriage at all?"

Red colors Lysa's cheeks as she fidgets with the sleeve of her dress. "Oh, I...well there was...there was a boy from the Fingers. Petyr, he's called, of House Baelish."

Elia has to strain to hear her, and when she does, she winces. A boy from the _Fingers_? Elia acknowledges the girl's predicament, but to arrange a match between the only available daughter of a Great House and a boy from a speck of a house she's never heard of? She would be _ridiculed_ for such a thing. _A woman's sympathies_ , they'd say, or _That Dornishwoman knows nothing of custom._ Were Lysa enamored with a Frey or a Royce or some such then she would approve it at once, but this...

"I'm afraid that is beyond my power," she confesses. "If you were a lesser daughter, then mayhaps, but as of now you are your brother's heir. I do not wish to cause you pain, but that is a match I am unable to make. By no means will I intervene if your brother's regents agree to marry you to this Petyr, but that is all I can do."

Lysa looks down at her hands, clearly disappointed yet not shocked by the refusal. "Yes, Your Grace. I-It was only a hope."

"I want you to consider me an ally, Lady Lysa. If you have any request, any at all, please ask it of me. If it is within my abilities to accommodate, I will do so. All I ask in return is for my son's throne to remain secure."

"I understand, Your Grace. Thank you."

"Do take care, my lady."

Lysa's smile is small, but lovely, and for the first time Elia sees a spark flare to life.


	45. Elia x Arthur III

_**Anon asked:** i was wondering if you could write a canon-compliant tourney of harrenhal (possible aftermath) fic b/w arthur and elia. you just write the pairing so well it always leaves me with feels. thank you for ur work. :)_

 _ **Another anon asked:** can we have a fic where Arthur tries to talk with Elia after Harrenhal but she tells him he preferred white cloak over her just like Rhaegar or idk she can say anything for angst. I love to see my ships sad._

 _ **Another anon asked:** i love your elia x arthur fics, i was wondering if you could do one after the tourney of harrenhal? canon where rhaegar wins. so we can pretend it actually happened._

* * *

The feast following the final joust is torture. Pretending she doesn't hear the whispers, the snickers, pretending she hasn't just been humiliated in front of half the realm, pretending she can still hold her head high when all she feels is burning rage, burning disgrace. She has to sit on the dais beside Rhaegar like a sweet little wife, a meek mouse who accepts it all without complaint. She doesn't know how many glasses of wine she's consumed, only that they're not enough to make her forget. The very opposite, in fact; it seems the more she drinks, the angrier she gets. Only Ashara's hand gripping hers keeps her from tearing into Rhaegar right in the middle of the dining hall.

And then finally, _finally_ , Lord Whent draws it to a close and dismisses them all. Rhaegar at least has the sense to not insist on accompanying her and her ladies to their rooms, but he does command Arthur to. It's tolerable when she has her ladies about her, but when they've all broken off to their chambers, it's just the two of them, and the silence becomes stifling, the long halls endless. Most of her fury is at Rhaegar, but there is more than a healthy amount reserved for Arthur. She feels it boiling inside her, threatening to burst.

She manages to hold it in until they reach her doors, and then—

"I hope you have a good night, princess."

And that does it.

"A _good night_?" she hisses. "You expect me to have a _good night_ after what Rhaegar did? After what _you_ did?"

Arthur frowns. "What _I_ did?"

"You _let_ Rhaegar win. You're a better jouster than him by half, and you threw the match. You must have known what he intended to do, and you let him crown that bloody northern girl anyway. I've known you to be many things, but _cruel_ was not one of them. Not until today."

"I didn't know that was his intent," he says. "Rhaegar unmasked Lady Lyanna as the mystery knight and said he wanted to honor her gallantry. I thought he meant gold or a personal commendation or a blessing for her betrothal, I never thought it would be this." His eyes narrow. "Do you think I _wanted_ this disaster?"

"You're Rhaegar's best friend, everyone knows how loyal you are to him. What else am I supposed to think?"

Arthur's laugh is one of self-deprecation, devoid of mirth. "Gods, you have no idea, do you?"

"No idea about _what_?"

Arthur's moment of hesitation is all the warning she gets before he grabs her by the waist and kisses her, hard and careless. It takes any hope of breath from her, and when he pulls away, all she can do is stare. She'd _never_ expected—not in a _million years_ —not _Arthur_ , of all people. He lets go but doesn't back away, and for the first time since they were children, she senses the daring man he used to be, before the white cloak, before vows, before kings and princes.

Her lips burn where his had touched them. "What was that?"

"It's why I couldn't have let him do that to you if I had known. For respect, too, but also...well, that."

"You realize what you've just done is treason? I'm your prince's wife."

Arthur scoffs. "He didn't seem concerned with that this afternoon."

"That doesn't make it _right_."

"No, I suppose it doesn't."

"If I scream, you're as good as dead."

"Are you going to scream?"

It's the wine, she tells herself later, the wine and the desire for revenge, yet right now revenge isn't all she desires. Urged by Rhaegar's indecency and Arthur's confession she kisses him, as harshly as he had, and without a word they stumble backwards into her room, barring the door behind them.

She's certain she'd imagined everything when she rouses the next morning, except she aches in a way she never has before, and she _remembers_. Not with clarity, it's all a blur, but she remembers the rush of lust, the thrill of being _illicit_ , of letting herself be reckless for once, the way his eyes had held the passion Rhaegar's lacked.

Oberyn had always said that tourneys are free of sin, that what occurs there need never leave the grounds, and so she tells herself that's exactly what this was. Being away from the confines of Dragonstone and the Red Keep was what had caused Arthur to kiss her and caused her to take him into her bed, nothing more.

And after tonight when the tourney concludes, there would be no reason to address what had happened, and certainly it would not happen again.

Really.


	46. Elia x Arthur IV

_**Anon asked:** I loved the Arthur Dayne/Elia fic where Elia slaps him for betraying her. It honestly made me so happy. May I make a little request that you continue it please? It just so good and I want more!_

* * *

" _Surely_ this cannot be all." It's her third read-through of this grievance, and she's still having a difficult time trusting her own eyes. "You're squabbling over _one chicken_?"

She tosses the page aside and rubs her tired eyes. She hadn't been able to sleep and so wanted to make some progress on the never-ending list of complaints that the people of King's Landing find worthy to cross her table, and now she is sorely regretting that decision. As she stretches, she realizes too that her mother may have been right about maintaining proper posture; her neck aches something fierce from being bent over for so long. She'd have to see the maester for it in the morning.

She jumps when there comes a soft knock at the door. Who could possibly be disturbing her this late? She considers reaching for the paperweight, and then she recognizes the visitor.

"Arthur," she exhales. "You startled me."

"I saw the light," he says. "Are you well?"

He must have had a restless night too, for she notices he's bereft of a weapon and his hair is an utter mess. "Yes, well enough. I'm trying to sort through these grievances." She brandishes the paper she'd been looking at, to gain some validation. "I am queen regent of the Seven Kingdoms and I am asked to make a judgment on _this_."

Arthur's frown deepens the further he reads, and then he flips the paper over as if hoping there's more. "Just...just give one of them coin enough to buy another chicken, I guess."

Elia had come to the same decision, but warns, "If they return to complain about _who_ got the coin from the treasury, I'm sending you to deal with them. The smallfolk love you, surely they'd—" She curses as a muscle in her neck spasms, about at her wits' end.

"What is it?" Arthur asks, concerned.

"It's a crick, nothing more," she answers. "The maester will see to it in a few hours."

He starts to move around the side of her desk, and she flinches away. "What are you doing?"

"I only want—can't you pretend for a moment that you don't hate me? I'm trying to help."

She watches warily as he walks behind her, and stiffens when she feels his hands settle on her shoulders. Hearing no objection, he starts easing the knots out of her muscles, smoothing the pains out of her neck, and she has to bite her lip against a very much involuntary moan.

"It's about time I repaid the favor," he explains.

"You've got a long way to go before that's repaid."

She used to do this for him, for Oberyn, for several of the boys back when they were young, after sparring sessions that left them especially tense. A shred of a memory comes back to her, a day when they couldn't have been more than three-and-ten and he'd told her she should make this her trade. They'd both dissolved in laughter afterwards at the face her mother would have made if she heard such a thing.

She thought she'd forgotten that.

Swallowing her pride, she says, "I'm sorry. This does help, thank you."

"Did I mishear?" he asks. "Was that an apology?"

She throws a glare over her shoulder. "Treasure it. You won't get another." The silence that follows is oddly comfortable, given everything that had happened. She lets herself relax into his touch, allowing them both this one reprieve. "My ire won't last forever," she says quietly. His motions stutter for a moment before resuming. "Mayhaps—mayhaps some of it comes from not being able to yell at a dead man the way I wish I could, so you're the next best target. And I do know you're trying to repent. The High Septon tells me you spend time at the sept."

"He has a loose tongue," Arthur grumbles. "Your ire is warranted. Forgiveness would be more than I deserve, Elia. Your Grace, I mean."

"Elia will suffice," she says, "when not at court. There are so few people who say my name these days, I've begun to forget what it is."

"Elia, then." Her name is almost... _reverent_ on his lips, and it sends through her an unexpected shiver. His fingertips brush her jaw so faintly she can't tell whether he'd meant to do it. "You'll be a good queen. You already are."

"It doesn't feel like it," she says. "The courtiers like me even less as a queen than they did as a princess. I can sense their disdain, no matter how flawless they think they are at concealing it. I wish I had my mother's courage."

"You sold yourself short when we were children, too. It's a vice in you."

"Yes, well. It's difficult to hold myself in high esteem when no one else does. I am not so confident as Ashara, nor you."

"Me?" he asks. "Hardly. Until the Smiling Knight was done with, I felt I would never oust the Brotherhood. Even afterwards, I was afraid I'd die from the wound I took, that my greatest victory would be overshadowed by a fool's death."

"It wouldn't have been _foolish_."

She remembers with all-too-perfect clarity the injury Simon Toyne had dealt him, a blade to the thigh that had come within a breath of slicing through an artery, which even the maester had had his doubts of survival. He'd spent a week in a haze of milk of the poppy. But he _had_ recovered, with what Ashara tells her is an ugly scar that will never fade. She supposes many ladies would find it quite dashing, though, and abruptly wonders whether any had seen it.

She still hasn't decided whether to fully give him back his position on the Kingsguard—but she hasn't given it away, either—and so strictly speaking his vows are suspended, too. If he so chose, he could bed any maiden he wished. The notion is discomfiting, but _why_ she doesn't know. What does it matter if he beds anyone, or whom?

 _It's just been a long time_ , she convinces herself, _and almost all of the men of the court are old, wed, or far from handsome. He is merely a change of scenery._

"You think very loudly," he comments. "Care to share?"

"No," she says instantly. He starts to move further down her back, but it's too much. It reminds her that regardless of his skill with working out the knots in her muscles, she _is_ still irate with him and she _does_ still resent the part he'd played in the war. "Don't."

Arthur removes his hands. The action takes with it the warmth and relief she'd enjoyed. "I meant no distress."

She stands and faces him, crossing her arms over her chest in a flimsy measure of defense. "I appreciate your assistance and your counsel, but I think it's past time for you to leave," she says. "It's...too soon."

"As you wish."

He gives her a respectful bow and obeys her request, but—very much against her will—her hand darts out and grasps his wrist. "I don't hate you, Arthur. I'm not sure I ever could. We...we've been through much, you and I."

"Aye, we have." He brings her hand to his lips and presses a kiss to it. "I hope sleep will no longer elude you."

She manages a flicker of a smile, but as soon as he closes the door behind him, she thinks, _No, sleep will not come this night._


	47. Rhaenys, Arthur

_**Anon asked:** can u write a fic where in the midst robb and rhaenys getting married, rhaenys and arthur (her real dad like you headcanon 3) have a little bonding moment?_

* * *

She can hardly breathe from nervous excitement, but outwardly she looks nearly perfect. It's mostly thanks to her mother and Ashara, the kohl around her eyes and the stain on her lips, the painstakingly perfect curls they'd somehow wrangled her hair into, the white damask of her gown sewn through with silver thread that had taken the seamstresses months to put together.

"Robb won't know what to do with himself," says Ashara conspiratorially.

Rhaenys laughs. "That's the idea."

Lace ostensibly prevents her bodice from being indecent, but from as close as Robb would soon be standing, there would be no mistaking the way her breasts strain against the fabric, nor her desire for him. He would enjoy ripping it in two, she knows that much.

The door opens just as Ashara is straightening the clasps on her silk maiden's cloak, and the both of them smile once they spot Arthur in the mirror. Ashara checks the fit and closures one last time before offering, "I'll be outside."

Rhaenys kisses her cheek. "Thank you, auntie."

"When did you grow into a woman?" Arthur asks once she leaves. "I could swear just yesterday you were a little girl."

"Oh, not you too," she groans. "Mother's been doing enough of that, no matter how many times I tell her I'll be staying here, not going to Winterfell."

"You're her firstborn," he says. "You hold a special place in her heart, and she doesn't want to lose you."

"She _won't_." She sees his fond smile fade to a frown and asks, "What is it?"

"Rhaegar should be here," he says. "Despite all that happened, he was still your father, he should see you wed."

Rhaenys looks down at her feet. "He wasn't, though, was he?" she asks quietly. _It's now or never._ "My father, I mean."

"What?" She can hear the catch in his voice; it's the final, unnecessary, piece of confirmation she needs.

"I couldn't figure out how to ask." Her eyes move to his, searching his face for similarity to her own. Her coloring is her mother's, but the resemblance is undeniable, now that she's looking for it. "It's you."

"Rhaenys, _no_ ," he objects. "What you are suggesting is preposterous, and treason besides."

"Or love," she persists. "I'm not blind, I've always seen how you and Mother look at each other, and how you look at me. Uncle Lewyn has known me my whole life, too, yet it's not the same. And–I don't know, I _feel_ it."

He stares at her a moment more, and then sits down heavily on the settee and buries his face in his hands. "How long have you known?"

"Years. But it's only been recently that I've stopped denying it."

"I never wanted you to find out," Arthur despairs. "Neither of us did. You deserve better."

"Better? Better is a man who ran away with a child-woman and started a war? A man who abandoned me and Aegon and Mother for over a year? How is that better?" she asks. "Nothing happened _after_ Mother was married, isn't that what counts?"

"How–?"

"I've _done_ the sums. Mother was married at the new year and I was born at the start of the ninth moon. The records say I was born early, but I wasn't, was I?"

His shoulders slump in defeat. "No, you weren't."

"What does it matter, anyway? I can't inherit anything, the Targaryen crown will never go through me, and I'm a born princess from Mother's side. Nothing changes, not really."

" _Everything_ would change. If anyone found out…"

"They can't, I know," she says. "No one would believe Aegon's legitimate when I'm not, even though that's the truth."

"The gods will wreak their own wrath upon me, I have no doubt."

"What wrath? No harm has come of it."

"No harm? I broke my _vows_ , Rhaenys. I swore to be chaste and to father no children, I swore it in front of gods and men, and I broke that in the worst of ways."

"Your brothers in white are so much more saintly? I care for them, but they all stood by during the Mad King's reign while he burned men alive and raped Grandmother, and Uncle Lewyn has _two_ children on his paramour. If you could do it over, if you knew lying with Mother would result in me, would you choose not to?"

"I don't know. Mayhaps."

"And Father?" she asks. "If he could do it over, would he choose to not pursue the prophecy?"

Arthur doesn't respond, which is response enough.

"I thought as much," she scoffs. "I would only want him here so I could show him the good we've done in spite of his actions. We've healed the realm, and ourselves, _we_ did that."

"Rhaegar loved you," says Arthur. "If you trust nothing else about him, trust that. His love for you never wavered."

"I know. But nevertheless, he chose some ancient fairy tale over his family, and I can't forgive it. I _won't_."

"You're as obstinate as your mother," he sighs.

"And you."

She sees no smile, only shame. "And me."

"Have I hurt you with this?" she asks, her surety faltering at his relentless guilt. "Should I have not told you I know?"

He takes her hand in his, familiar and yet unexplored. "The fault lies with me. I should have said something long ago."

"Well, there's naught to be done about it," she says. "But now there needn't be a secret anymore. At least, not privately. We can only move forward."

"Starting with your marriage," says Arthur. "You can finally make a man out of that boy."

Rhaenys grins. "Surely you know that I've already–"

"Do _not_ say another word." At her compliance, he opens the velvet-lined box on her vanity and removes from it her diadem, a simple thing of spun rose gold gifted to her by Grandmother. He places it gently on her head, careful to avoid mussing Ashara's handiwork, and then steps back to see her in full. "You look beautiful."

"Will you say it?" she asks. "I need to hear it."

There is no mistaking what she means. "Rhaenys…"

"Please," she implores. "Just once."

She thinks he'll refuse; she anticipates the disappointment. And then he leans down and whispers in her ear, words only she will ever hear, and she feels the last wall around her heart crumble away.

 _My daughter._


	48. Elia, Rhaenys

_For a number meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Oh Elia and rhaenys please for 24!_

* * *

 _24\. my child_

She doesn't want to send her away. She wants to keep her close, comfort her with tale or song while the world falls apart around them, hug her tight and never let go.

But she has to, she sends her away, because she must. If the Holdfast should fall...

She can't do the same with Aegon, he has to be here with her—he's so _small_ —but Rhaenys is nearly three, old enough to know, old enough to _run_. She doesn't understand fully what's happening, or why, only that bad men are coming and that more than ever she must trust what her mother says. Rhaenys's dark eyes are wide as she listens to the order, to Elia's command to run. To _hide_. To find a spot no one would think to look and not to come out for anyone, not even Uncle Jaime. Elia tries to couch it in a game— _it's like when you crawl under the desks or crouch down in the clothespress and Mama tries to find you, right? Just like that_ —but Rhaenys has never been slow of mind; she knows this is no game.

Elia watches as she disappears down the hall out of view, then clutches Aegon to her breast and weeps. It feels as though a great fist is slowly crushing her heart as she realizes she may never see her daughter again. The Holdfast is supposed to be impenetrable, Maegor had made it so, and yet through the nursery window she can see men climbing its walls, murder in their very bones.

She has her Dornish guards outside the nursery, and the doors barred, but somehow she knows it could very well not be enough. If only she had even Jaime here, it would be a comfort, but he's far away guarding Aerys. He wouldn't be able to get to them in time even if he tried.

No, she will be alone, alone but for her infant son. He's sleeping now, blissfully oblivious to the chaos outside, and she strokes the fine down of his hair, praying he doesn't wake. It would sooth her, to know he never felt...

She takes a breath, trying to hold herself together. Unbowed, unbent, unbroken. She had faced hardship before; she will do it again. Rhaenys is her daughter, in look and in spirit, and Elia has to believe she'll find a place to hide, somewhere dark and small where men could search for days and still never find her. She would grow up safe and healthy and strong.

It had taken a day and a night to bring Rhaenys into the world—through it all she had never lost faith, and she won't lose it now. She _can't_.

 _Rhaenys_ , she prays, _no matter what happens, Mama loves you. Now and always._


	49. Elia x Arthur V

_For a number meme._

 _Anon asked: 15, 32 for Arthur x Elia_

* * *

 _15\. "I miss you."  
32\. "It never gets easier."_

She thought she'd never see him again. He'd joined the Kingsguard and her betrothal trip had failed, and she thought that would be the end of it. Perhaps they'd cross paths one day, at a tourney or a coronation, but otherwise who they were to one another would fade away in time.

She couldn't have been more wrong.

They meet at Lord Robert's tourney first, the day her betrothal is announced to the realm. Her only vindication is that there's the same raw pain in his eyes as she feels in her own heart, that she doesn't suffer alone. That he's moved on no more than she has.

He pulls her into an alcove after the feast when everyone's too drunk to notice, leans his forehead against hers. "Don't do this," she whispers, even as she longs to touch him. It's been five years, five long years, and for as angry with him as she still is for leaving, more than anything she _wants_ him.

"I miss you."

"You _can't_ miss me. It's far too late for that."

He doesn't say anything, but she sees the dangerous hint of challenge in the set of his jaw. _You were mine first_ , it seems to mean, _and I was yours._

It doesn't get any better after her marriage. She doesn't even get the distraction of Rhaella, Viserys, and the bustle of King's Landing, for Rhaegar whisks them off to Dragonstone. She is grateful she does not have to suffer Aerys's rages and lechery, but being here is its own special kind of torture. The times Rhaegar goes off to Summerhall are nearly unbearable. It would take no effort at all to slip out of her room and into his, to finally quench the burning heat inside her.

"Is this how it's going to be until the end of our days?" she asks him one night. She's so close, if only she moved an inch to the left, she could feel his lips on hers for the first time in years.

"It has to be."

"When does it get easier?" Through her bedgown she can feel the heat of his hands on her waist and thinks, _Just a little lower._

"I don't know," he says. "Maybe never."

 _Never._ The very thought makes her ill. How could she go through a lifetime of this? Yet how could she _not_? The times he's gone are even more agonizing than when he's not. He's her poison, and her antidote, the best part of her, and the worst.

Her rise, and her downfall.


	50. Jon, Rhaenys, Aegon, Robb x Rhaenys

_Anon asked: Can you please do a Aegon and Rhaenys vs Jon fic about them hating, tolerating and then growing fond of each other as siblings? I love your fics, they're amazing._

 _Another anon asked: You're an amazing writer! I love all your AU's with rhaenys. Could you do one with Jon Snow and rhaenys? Kinda angsty but not too sad_

* * *

His whole life, the fact that he has half-siblings is little more than a nebulous idea to to him. That those half-siblings are royals, that one of them sits the _Iron Throne_ while he's a bastard in Winterfell is nearly impossible to wrap his head around. He knows who his parents were, and he knows that he shares one of them with the king and princess, and he knows that there must be thousands of people with royal blood in Westeros, yet still he thinks surely there must be a mistake. Lyanna Stark being his mother he can comprehend; he has her look, Uncle Ned says so all the time. Crown Prince Rhaegar Targaryen being his father, however…

For fourteen years, he more or less tries to pretend they don't exist. It's easier that way. And then one day Ned tells them all that he received a letter, one sealed with a three-headed dragon.

"King Aegon will be making a progress to the North," he says. Normally stoic, Jon can see the uncertainty in his uncle's face and knows he's remembering the war he so rarely talks about. "He says he has made progresses elsewhere in the realm but as he reaches his age of majority a year hence, he wishes to have seen every kingdom before he becomes sovereign over them all. Princess Rhaenys will be accompanying him."

"The queen?" Aunt Catelyn asks.

Ned skims the text again and shakes his head. "It makes no mention of her."

Jon can't tell whether Catelyn is relieved or disappointed. Queen Elia had allowed Ned to live, but she had also executed Catelyn's father. Though Jon does not doubt she would have been the pinnacle of politeness had the queen chosen to come along, he wonders what her internal feelings would have been.

Sansa begins effusing about how exciting it will all be, and then the rest of his cousins chime in with comments of their own, but Jon stays silent. Will he be expected to keep himself out of sight during their visit? Probably. He's still a bastard, after all, never mind who his kin are. He wonders if this is how the illegitimate children of previous kings had felt. Caught between wanting to be included, and wanting to be ignored.

He ultimately refrains from being in the crowd that greets them, but it turns out not to matter. After the feast, Princess Rhaenys corners him in the yard, appraising him much like she might a pebble in her shoe.

"So you're the bastard," she sneers. "You don't look like much."

It's true enough. He's no Robb or, so he's heard, his uncle Brandon who'd died before he was born. He searches his half-sister for any resemblance, but there is little to be found. Not in her Martell coloring nor her undeniable beauty, nor the imperious way she holds herself, not even the slope of her nose or the thickness of her hair. They are as different as the earth from the sky. Not that he'd resembles King Aegon either.

"It's said I have Lord Eddard's look."

"Your mother's, you mean," says the princess. "Hard to believe my father set off a civil war for _you_."

The anger in him rises enough to want to fire off a retort, but then he notices something in her voice that he hadn't before. There isn't just disdain for him, although that's there too, but _hurt_. It's not _Jon_ she's furious with. It's a revelation that nearly knocks him off his feet. He could never say it to her face, of course, but realizing that he's the primary object of her resentment not only because of his existence but because their sire is long dead, it's a heady feeling.

"Yes, Your Grace," he answers. "I could not say why."

"I _know_ why," she says, but she doesn't elaborate. Honestly, he doesn't much care. If she knew anything about his mother, he would beg her for information, no matter how cruelly she said it, but Prince Rhaegar he would rather forget. She looks him up and down once more, scoffs, then strides off with a swish of her skirts. She doesn't say another word to him for the rest of the trip.

* * *

The wedding is in King's Landing, though he's heard there would be another, much smaller, ceremony in the godswood later as well. He had almost decided to stay behind–he has little interest in the capital–but Robb has been as close as a brother their entire lives, and he can't miss something like this.

And…well. Rhaenys may despise him, but she's still his sister, and is about to become his good-cousin on top of that.

Uncle Ned initially wants to do the same as Jon, as he had when they went south for King Aegon's wedding (the _others_ , that is; Jon had elected to not darken their doorsteps), but both Robb and Aunt Catelyn had coerced him out of that decision. He doesn't speak much on the way down, and so it is Aunt Catelyn who takes control.

(Robb is a nervous bundle of energy the entire way, but a happy one.)

The capital is expansive, and the architecture much different from the North's, but the smell is _awful_ and altogether it's about what he expected. It is Ser Jaime Lannister of the Kingsguard who greets them at the gates; he's unequivocally the most handsome man Jon's ever seen, and beside him he hears Sansa breathe in an audible gasp. Bran stares up at him in awe, not for his appearance but for his position, and Jon's reminded of how much his cousin has always desired to be a member of the realm's most prestigious order of knights.

"Come," says Ser Jaime genially.

As Robb's family, they've been given rooms in Maegor's Holdfast–even Jon. He wonders whose decision that had been. Probably Robb's. Perhaps even the king's, who has been neutrally cordial to him.

It's a beautiful ceremony, he has to admit, and he _is_ pleased to see Rhaenys giddy, something she certainly hadn't been the last time he saw her. It is surprising to all when Robb is approached with a golden coronet not by the High Septon, but by the queen.

"This was my father's crown," she says. "You will be not only the consort to a princess of the realm, but a princess of Dorne. So long as you treat my daughter with the same regard as my father did for my mother, it is yours."

Robb swears to do just that, and Queen Elia reverently places the crown on his head. It is bizarre to see Robb with such an adornment, but he knows that Rhaenys's status matters not to him.

Afterwards, they stand on the marble plaza of the Great Sept to accept congratulations from all the courtiers, and although Jon is hesitant, the voice in his head convinces him to join them. _Robb is your blood, and so is Rhaenys._

Robb hugs him like a brother, and Jon next moves to Rhaenys. "I wish you both well."

He had thought they'd turned over a new leaf at the tourney a few years back when he'd crowned Queen Elia, but her face falls nonetheless. He starts to move on, figuring she intends to say nothing, but then she touches his arm, ever so briefly. "Thank you," she says. She glances at Robb and her smile reappears. "I have found happiness."

"I am pleased to hear it, Your Grace."

She pauses a moment, then replies, "Rhaenys. It seems we are cousins now, you may as well call me by my name."

 _We're siblings, too_ , he almost says, but doesn't. The concession–for he knows that's what it is–is what he has longed for since he was a child. "Yes, it seems we are."

* * *

They never become… _close_ , exactly, but between her own softening and Robb being their shared kin, there grows a tenuous truce between them. He has been on good terms with Aegon for a long while now, but Rhaenys had always been a tougher nut to crack, she who still remembers having sole possession of their father's attention before everything went wrong. Before Jon.

She even reluctantly allows him to hold her first child when they visit Winterfell, a girl who is the very image of a Martell, save for the eyes that, while darker than Robb's, are unmistakably blue. His niece, though Jon doesn't say that. He had held Aegon's babes, too, yet somehow it is Rhaenys's approval that remains the thing he most desires.

The Ironborn mount a rebellion not long after Aegon passes reform that would severely limit the ability for their raiding parties, and the North sends troops to aid the crown's forces, troops that Jon joins in part to fight at Robb's side. Robb's, and Aegon's. Many had discouraged the king from participating, but he had declared that a sovereign should not send his people to fight battles he is unwilling to fight himself, and if he should fall he has an heir who could succeed him.

Somehow, they all survive the war, though not without casualties; fortunately, far more for the Ironborn than for the crown. It isn't conscious thought on Jon's part to take a blow to the chest for Aegon, yet take it he does. Later, after Aegon himself bestows a knighthood upon him and they return to the capital, Rhaenys pulls him aside.

"You saved my brother's life. Thank you."

"He's my brother, too," Jon points out, "and the king."

He expects her to qualify his words, but she doesn't; instead, she bites her lip then kisses him on the cheek, so quickly he has to convince himself it happened at all.

"I'm glad you're all right," she says. "I—I'd never thought how it would feel to…to lose _two_ brothers."

She runs off after that without looking back, and it takes a week for Jon to stop smiling.


	51. Rhaenys, Rhaegar, Elia

_**Anon asked:** if you're inspired to, could you write rhaegar being a complete dork when it comes to his daughter please? the line about rhaenys hiding under his bed always killed me._

* * *

It's only as Elia gets a full hour into her embroidery uninterrupted that she realizes things are _too_ quiet. And then, just as she's about to investigate, her door bursts open and Rhaenys barrels through, red-faced. "Hide me!" she giggles. "Mama, hide me."

"Who is it after you now?" she laughs. It could be anyone; her daughter has enraptured everyone from the Kingsguard to the cooks.

"Papa! He's gonna find me."

She gets to her knees and starts crawling under the bed, but Elia grabs the back of her dress before she can get wedged beneath. "My bed is too small for that, baby. Papa's bed is higher, why don't you try his?"

"Where are you at, little starfish?" comes a voice from out in the hall. Rhaenys's eyes go wide as she looks around the room.

"He's found me!" she whisper-yells. "Where can I go?"

"Try behind the dressing screen," Elia suggests. "Crouch down and he shouldn't see you."

"You won't tell him?"

"Of course not."

Rhaenys nods and does as Elia said, rushing behind the screen and curling into a ball. Not seconds later, the door opens once again and Rhaegar appears, looking rather sheepish when he only spots her. "You, ah, haven't seen Rhaenys, have you?"

"If I did, I wouldn't tell you," says Elia loudly. To Rhaegar, she cocks her head in the direction of Rhaenys's hiding place.

In two quick steps, Rhaegar reaches behind the screen and lifts her up, tickling her sides. " _There_ you are."

"Mama you _told_!"

Elia lets out an offended gasp. "I would never. Your father is just too good at this game."

"Fair is fair, sweetling," says Rhaegar. "It's your turn to seek."

Rhaenys pouts. "Fine. But I get Uncle Arthur on my team this time."

"Ah, a challenge! It's been far too long since my old friend and I have competed at this game. Come, let's go find him."

Elia rolls her eyes. "Be _careful_. I don't want any skinned knees because you ran too fast."

"Yes, Mama," says Rhaenys. The end is caught up in a squeal as Rhaegar lifts her onto his shoulders.

With a parting wink, he takes her out into the hall and calls out, "Arthur! Your princess needs you."

Elia smiles. Rhaegar may be the most melancholy person she's ever met, but there's no doubting his love for their daughter. She wishes he could be more like this even without Rhaenys around, but for now, she'll take it. It's good to see him happy, even if only for a while.


	52. Elia, Lyanna, Rhaegar

_**ashara asked:** anything with Elia and Lyanna fucking Rhaegar over._

* * *

It was a letter she never expected to receive, one that had at first sent her into a frozen rage and then had her wheels turning in a way she knows her mother would have been proud of.

 _Dearest niece_ , it had read, in the handwriting of her late father's sister,

 _My outriders noticed a rather unwelcome set of occupants who entered the Pass this very morning. I had told him surely he must be mistaken—the crown prince? Why would he be near our lands without you at his side? And then the realm heard of your darling husband's disappearance, and…pardon my candor, but if he could shame you so at Harrenhal, why would he not shame our kingdom?_

 _I have not acted, for I do not wish to overstep. I leave the matter of this information in your hands, and await your command. Let it be known that House Manwoody will forsake neither our princess nor our kin._

 _Yours,_

 _Deria, Lady of Kingsgrave_

She had had it half-crumpled at the mention of what Rhaegar had done before Lady Deria's words registered. Rhaegar had taken the girl to Dorne. _Dorne!_ To have such callous gall as to—no. Her fury had quickly tempered to pondering; even now, a week hence, she knows the precious jewel she has in her hands. Not even Aerys, not even the remaining Kingsguard, know where Rhaegar had gone, but she does.

But what to do? While the Manwoodys are not a large house, no doubt their men-at-arms could overcome Rhaegar's minute contingent of men, but then what? It would give her great pleasure to see Rhaegar's head on a spike, if nothing else than for causing Rhaenys to wonder where her papa had gone, yet at the same time, such a thing would put everyone she loves in danger, and with Aerys's madness to account for…

She wonders not for the first time what role the Stark girl played in all this. Were it someone else, were she Cersei Lannister, Elia would think her conniving, that she did this out of malice or perceived vengeance. Yet she recalls with perfect clarity the utter shock and _offense_ the girl had shown when Rhaegar presented her with those roses, and the way she had rebuffed her own betrothed.

It doesn't track. The girl had been impulsive, childish even, but a _schemer_? It's not a word Elia would have used. Then again, she hadn't thought Rhaegar was capable of something like this either, and look how wrong she was about _that_. Still, the niggling feeling that Lyanna Stark may not have been part and parcel to whatever plan Rhaegar has won't leave her.

Regardless, no matter how Elia chooses to act on this, she knows she'll need allies. Dorne alone would never be enough. However…

She calls her uncle into her solar, ensuring that no one else is around to hear. She shows him Deria's proposal, watching as the implications dawn on him. "I have a plan in mind," she tells him, "and I must ask something of you, though it is not without risk."

"Name it, and it shall be done, niece."

Her voice is steady. "I want to send you to the Vale."

"The _Vale_? Why?"

She leans forward and places in his hands the sealed letter she had spent three days drafting. "I have a message for Jon Arryn."

* * *

It started with a letter, and so it ends with one.

Lewyn back at her side, his mission successful, Elia pens a note to her aunt, two short words: _Do it._

Leaving her children in Lewyn's care, she takes several of her Dornish guards and heads south to find the fruits of her labor. Their trip is unmolested, but all the same she is glad when the familiar castle of Kingsgrave comes into their sights. Her aunt greets them in the yard, looking just as Elia remembered, her hair drawn into a severe knot and her hazel eyes shrewd.

"It's been done?" Elia asks.

Deria smiles a shark's smile. "Prince Rhaegar should have brought more men with him."

"He underestimates Dornish loyalty," says Elia. "I am not surprised."

"Loyalty," Deria scoffs. "The Dayne boy seems to have none."

"I will deal with him later," says Elia curtly. "I have more pressing concerns. Please, take me to Lady Lyanna. I would speak with her first. I know why Rhaegar took her, I would like to hear _her_ explanation."

Deria does just that, leading her to one of the guest chambers within the castle. Elia is glad her aunt had had the foresight to not banish the girl to the dungeons like the rest of them; she would rather have no reason at all to incur ire from the Starks or anyone else.

"I would hope," Elia says without preamble, "that when I ask you why you did this, 'love' is not amongst the words that come out of your mouth."

Lyanna looks tired, but unharmed. "I assure you, it is not," she says. It is jarring, to hear the harsh Northern accent in her homeland, and a clear reminder of how cruelly audacious Rhaegar had been to bring her here. "Prince Rhaegar promised me that he could free me from my betrothal to Robert."

 _Silly, naive child_ , Elia thinks. _Rhaegar doesn't have the power to do that. And if he did, he would not have stowed you away here without telling anyone._

"I was a fool to go along with it," says Lyanna. She sounds contrite, at least, which is a start.

"Yes, you were. It was stupid to trust him, no matter how pretty his face may be."

"It wasn't because he was _pretty_ ," Lyanna snaps. "He's the crown prince, and I thought because of the…the rumors—"

"That he wants to depose his father, yes, I know. Empty words." Elia sighs. "But you would not be the first person he bewitched. The only question is, where do your allegiances lie now?"

"With my family, as they always have." She lowers her eyes, as if realizing for the first time who Elia is. "And with you, Your Grace. I acknowledge I am at your mercy."

"Indeed you are. What I want most is to see Rhaegar burn," Elia says. "For what he's done to me and our children, and to the realm. I have certain…assurances, but I require yours. Swear the North to me, in this if not in perpetuity, and I will harbor no ill will towards you or your family."

"As you will," says Lyanna. "Whatever you desire for the prince, I suspect I will enjoy."

Elia smiles. "Yes, I suspect you shall."

The coup is less bloody than she expected—not without casualties, but with nearly all of the Great Houses sworn against the crown, Rhaegar apprehended, and Lyanna returned, Aerys's forces are few. She hears something about wildfire, but with Ser Jaime's help the king and his lead pyromancers are safely imprisoned, the capital under rebel control. Even Lord Brandon and Lord Rickard had been spared, thanks to her aunt's offer and Lord Arryn's acceptance coming through before Lord Rickard made it to King's Landing.

And now here she stands in the throne room, Rhaegar prostrate at her feet, Lyanna haughtily observing nearby. "You stand guilty of high treason," Elia says. "Lady Lyanna's testimony was quite helpful in confirming your actions. You will never set foot near us again, I can assure you of that. I need merely to decide whether to be merciful and execute you now, or ensure that you spend the rest of your days at the Wall, where you will find none."

"She told me what your plans were, about the prophecy," pipes up Lyanna. "How you intended to make me your broodmare, as you did the princess."

"I didn't—"

"Death risks making you a martyr. The Wall, I think. Though of course," Lyanna says, turning to her, "the decision is yours."

"Then it's settled," says Elia. To Rhaegar, she adds thoughtfully, "I suppose I should thank you. Dorne now has unwavering allies where before we had none."

Elia watches with satisfaction as Rhaegar is led away, free for the first time in years.


	53. Daenerys x Maron I

_For **madaboutasoiaf**._

* * *

She doesn't like Dorne. It's taken her a long while to acknowledge such a thing, such a _failing_. Her whole life has been about duty, and she'd worn it well, no matter Daemon's yammering about choice. Maron is kind and handsome enough, and it is refreshing to see women of all standings speaking their minds, yet all the same, it's dusty, it's loud, it's hot, the food is searing, and she misses her family. With the gap in their ages, Daeron had always felt more like an uncle than a brother, but to his sons she'd been close. Baelor, mostly, but she liked sitting down with quiet Maekar, too.

No one is _mean_ to her in Dorne, exactly, but still she can sense the distaste from many, the wounds from resisting nearly two centuries of her family's rule, and the Valyrians' long before that, not quite healed, made worse by who her father was. It makes for a lonely time, even though some of her ladies accompanied her from King's Landing to Sunspear.

She sits in her chamber, alone, once again trying to memorize the Dornish history her maesters had never delved into, from the arrival of the First Men across the Broken Arm to Princess Nymeria's conquest to the complex politics since, many of the Rhoynish names queer on her tongue. It is slow going—not only had her maesters omitted much, but it turns out much of what they'd said is completely wrong—and she is not ungrateful to hear the knock on her door.

"Enter," she calls.

Her princely husband walks in, apprehensive of her as usual but almost anxious as well. "Will you take a trip with me?"

"A trip? Where?"

He holds out his hand. "It's a surprise."

* * *

Indeed it is, for while she doesn't know exactly what she'd expected, it wasn't to get in a horse litter and ride for miles. They're skirting the coast, that much she can tell, for in her peeks between the curtains, she can spot the blue, blue ocean to her right. It baffles her, though, as to where they could be heading. From her perusing of Dornish maps, she knows there's nothing directly north of Sunspear. Ghost Hill is to the northwest, but otherwise there's only bare land.

"Maron, _honestly_ ," she says after what seems like ages. "We've been riding for hours, _where_ are we going?"

"We're nearly there," he replies.

There's a kind of nervous excitement in his expression, and that alone has her refraining from further argument. Of him and his sister, he's the more reserved, she's found out, or at least around her, so different from Daemon's endless, _restless_ energy.

It takes another hour, but finally the litter slows to a stop. She begins to step down, but Maron halts her, unwinding her scarf and tying it around her head as a blindfold. "Is this necessary?"

"I told you, it's a surprise," he says, helping her down. They walk across the uneven sand for several minutes, and then she hears the unmistakable gurgle of fountains and the sand gives way to polished stone. She frowns, perplexed. Perhaps this is some ancient Rhoynish settlement that had grown into disuse that Maron thought she'd be interested in? She can't think of what else it could be.

Fortunately, she doesn't have long to wonder. Apparently satisfied with their location, Maron stops and removes the blindfold. It takes her a moment to adjust to the brightness, but when she does she lets out a gasp. She's standing in the middle of a palace, pink marble all around her and an expansive, intricate pool stretching in front of her with a fountain at its center. She turns in place, eyeing with wonder the grove of citrus trees and date palms, the unobstructed view of the ocean through the marble columns. Most enticing of all, the cool marble allays the sun's heat, and only pure, tangy air fills her lungs.

"It's not entirely finished yet," Maron says, as though somehow interpreting her awed silence as disappointment. "But I thought…I know your time in Dorne has not been comfortable, and I want you to be happy here. It's yours, Daenerys."

 _Hers._ He'd done all this for _her_ , he'd built this for _her_ , his Targaryen bride whom he'd only married because of a betrothal contract neither of them had a say in. He'd spent who knows how many dragons on this palace, and all because he'd noticed how the heat and the dust got to her. It's so unbelievably sweet and thoughtful that her heart suddenly feels too big for her chest.

"Thank you," she says, tearing her eyes away from the marble to look up at him. Tentatively, she kisses him on the lips, and finds it's not at all unpleasant. "I can't believe you've done all this just for me."

"You're my wife."

"Yes," she says, "but men are not like you where I'm from. Women are lucky to receive any true courtesy at all in marriage, let alone…this."

"You're in Dorne," he says. "Our women are our equals in all things, and so shall you be. From this day until your last, you shall want for nothing, I swear it."

She smiles. "I believe you."


	54. Elia x Arthur VI

_For a word meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Spring + Elia x Arthur_

* * *

She measures them by seasons.

Summer is the shine of their youth, fevered kisses in the citrus grove, laughter and love and happiness, summer is naive promises of spending eternity together.

Autumn is him signing away his life to a mad king, but at least it means she will forever be his only; Mother's deal with the Lannisters goes south when Lady Joanna dies, and so he is to be her only, too.

Winter is her marriage. Winter is cold nights and desire that could never be seen, winter is the Stark girl, winter is war.

They have no spring.


	55. Rhaella x Doran I

_For a word meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Doran x Rhaella oath_

* * *

Asking for help has never been easy. In fact, she can't remember the last time she'd asked for it at all. Even if she had asked, no one would have helped her, she's always known that. She could beg the Kingsguard to help save her from Aerys's torment, beg her ladies, beg _anyone_ , and no one would move a muscle. Not even her own parents cared a whit for her well-being. Nearly thirty years she's fended for herself with only the dregs of her grandmother's pride as comfort, and now she knows she must sacrifice it.

Ser Willem had wanted them to go to Essos, but Essos is too far, too untested, might even still be teeming with secret Blackfyre supporters. Most of Westeros would be no friend to her, except one, her last hope.

Dany clutched in her arms, she goes to her knees in front of the Prince of Dorne, beseeching. "It is too much to ask, I know, especially after what my family did to yours, but I beg you to shelter us."

Thirty years. Thirty years of being spat on, of being told she's weak. She expects it now, too.

Prince Doran takes her by the elbow and gently brings her to her feet. "You bow to no one," he says. His voice reminds her of Elia's—soft, yet backed by iron. "You showed my sister love in King's Landing when no one else would, and you have shared our grief. We will shelter you. On my mother's grave, I swear you shall find peace here."

He says it so plainly, so readily, as though he could countenance nothing else, that thirty years' worth of needing help and never getting it finally surges over the wall of stone she'd built around herself. The tears come fast and hard, the depth of her relief almost painful, and yet he does not call her weak like Aerys would (like Aerys _did_ ), he simply takes her hand.


	56. Elia x Arthur VII

_For a word meme._

 _rhaella asked: elia/arthur + constellations_

* * *

His mother is the one who first teaches him about the stars, where they lie in the sky and what shapes they make, the ancient Rhoynish legends behind each one, and it is Prince Lewyn who teaches him how to use them to navigate. A warrior need never lose his way, he says, so long as his eyes are sharp and the sky is clear.

He thinks it's fate's blessing that brings them together, in the beginning. Their sigils alone surely foretold it: his is a star, hers is the brightest star, his has a sword, hers has a spear. Indeed, it's hard to think of any other possibility, not when they fit together so effortlessly, so ardently. Not when he can map her body as well as he can map the skies, not when he can make her smile even at her sickest, not when they stare up at the heavens together, bare and blissful, not when calling her _wife_ becomes his greatest dream.

He should have known he had it wrong.

The sun is the brightest star, but when does it burn? It burns when he does not, lighting up the day where he is confined to night. They are opposites, destined not to remain as one but instead to forever be apart save for a single glimpse as twilight falls. He could chase her forever but never would they truly be joined.

And who is he to protest? This is no foe he can fight, no man he can run through with his blade, no dragon he can slay to save the princess in the tower. The sky is the gods' domain and he is but a man. Even kings are bound to the will of the cosmos.

Worst of all, it makes everything fall into place, all the things he thought were mere injustices, the things he didn't understand. Why he came to Sunspear in the first place and found a love that permeated his very soul, why her mother looked everywhere _but_ Dorne for a match, why Aerys chose _him_ for his Kingsguard, why he had to watch her marry his best friend and spend every day knowing it would no longer be his bed she shared. He can see her, talk to her, love her, yet never touch her, never call her his.

Yes, he should have known. It would have been better for them both if he'd never loved her at all, but the very thought feels like a punch to the stomach. It had always felt inevitable, like it had happened before and would happen again. Perhaps that is his curse, to have her for but a breath only to lose her. To another man, to death, to anything the gods desire. They would wink out like dying stars, one then the other, her then him or him then her, only to start all over again, ignorant of the pain to come.

Round and round and round they go, forever.


	57. Robb x Rhaenys VII

_For a word meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Rhaenys/Robb + Dusk?_

* * *

She's been with him long enough—well _been with_ is a loose term—to know it's best to leave before he fully recovers, yet tonight, leaving means she has to study for her midterm, and staying in his arms for an extra moment is much more enticing. At least, until he speaks.

"Is this it?" he asks, in that quiet way that puts dread in the pit of her stomach.

She thinks of cracking a joke, pointing out that no way could three rounds in two hours be termed anything other than _amazing_ , but she knows this isn't the time. With a sigh, she gets off the bed and starts to locate her clothes; studying doesn't sound so bad right now.

"Robb, we've talked about this," she says. "I thought we agreed there would be no strings."

His words come out in a rush. "What if I want strings?"

"Then join a marionette club. Or find another girl, because I _don't_ want them."

He looks determined rather than hurt, which is worse. "I don't believe you," he says. "This isn't just sex anymore, not for me and not for you either, I know it. We've been in this…limbo for a long time, half-hooking up and half-something else."

"I don't know what to tell you," she says, pulling her shirt over her head. "If you want to claim you have feelings for me, then whatever, but don't drag me into it."

He stands, the better to face her, seemingly content to have this conversation despite having not a stitch of clothing on. It had been what first attracted her to him, his confidence; she'd only discovered later how vulnerable he could be, too, how much he second-guesses himself.

Without another word, he closes their distance in two quick steps and kisses her, impossibly gentle despite his resolve. She resists at first—god _damn_ it, she's trying to set things straight here—but as ever, she feels her traitorous body relaxing into it, enjoying its sweetness as much as she'd enjoyed their earlier passion, and when she pulls away she only barely stops herself from reaching for him again.

"That was not nothing," he says. "Look, this isn't easy for me either, okay? After everything, I thought I'd never go down this road especially with you of all people, but when you suggested this, I figured there'd be no harm in it, and then…"

"What, you love me or something now?" she asks, rolling her eyes. "Come on, Robb."

"That's exactly what," he says. "I love you, Rhae, so much it scares me."

She stares at him, absolutely floored. She intends to say something snarky, or mean, or something, but instead what comes out is, "You can't."

"What do you mean I _can't_?" he asks. "You don't get to choose who you fall in love with, it doesn't work that way."

"My dad slept with your aunt," she snaps. "I'm the last person you should love. Go find, I don't know, that Alys girl from our social psych class for someone to love you back. She's already got a thing for you, you wouldn't even have to try."

"I don't want Alys Karstark. I want you."

"Well, what _I_ want is your dick, not your heart," she says. "But fine, I'll find someone who won't get all _emotional_."

He's silent for several moments, and then gets an expression on his face that makes her take a step back. "I'm not going to leave you, Rhaenys," he says quietly. "I'm not going to hurt you, there won't be anyone else."

Panic rises in her chest. This is too much, she wants _simple_ , she wants _easy_ , she can't deal with this. He reads her too well, and it paralyzes her. "You don't know what you're talking about," she says. She intends it to be harsh, but her voice merely sounds small. "Just stop it."

The panic finally overtakes her, and she runs out before he can say another word of the truth.

* * *

She hadn't realized quite how much she _did_ talk to him until she doesn't. More than once she finds herself reaching for her phone after someone in one of her classes does something ridiculous or to complain about how Sarella hacked her Facebook again just for fun, or to ask him if she can bounce some ideas off him for her final paper coming up. She deletes his number, but it's no good; she'd memorized it long ago.

Somehow Mother knows something's up (not _what_ , thank God), and Rhaenys wishes she could tell her, or tell her some of it at least, because she knows Mother would say all the right things. At least, she would if Robb were any other boy.

Worst of all, she can't get his words out of her head, his proclamation. It eats at her until she can think of hardly anything else, certainly not about schoolwork. Finally, fed up with herself, she storms to Robb's dorm to find some sort of closure with all this nonsense. She has a whole speech planned, in fact. Not even his look of shock or his roommate Theon's crude innuendoes as he leaves the room quells her.

Except that once they're alone, she can't remember a single syllable of her carefully crafted speech. All she knows is Robb, in her midst for the first time in weeks.

"If you've come here to say you don't reciprocate, don't bother," he says dejectedly. "I heard you the first time."

"You were right, okay?" she bursts out. "I'm hung up on what happened. If I keep you at arm's length it means it will never happen to me like it happened to my mother. I will never be shamed. I can't stop the fear that I'll have to endure the same thing. Maybe it's unfair, but I don't care. I need a wall around me, I _have_ to. I can't just…throw caution to the wind like you do, and I can't let my mother be hurt either."

"I told you, I'm not your father."

"Dad said the same thing, and look what he did. How am I supposed to trust you, or any man?"

"I'll prove it to you," he says, nothing but earnestness in his eyes. "Just give me a shot."

"How?" she asks. "How do I just forget everything?"

"Not forget. Move forward. I'm Robb and you're Rhaenys, and we'll go from there."

"I'm not ready for…love."

He smiles the smile that makes her stomach swoop. "I'll wait for you."


	58. Arthur, Robb x Rhaenys

_**bbnightengale asked:** Arthur and Robb conversation? I just love Elia/Arthur and Robb/Rhaenys and I can't decide if an Arthur & Robb scene would be funny because Robb is meeting the sword of the morning, or his possible step father in law lol_

* * *

He finds him in the armory at first light, where Arthur sits polishing his sword. He glances up to find the boy looking at once anxious and excited, with a healthy dose of exhaustion, as though he hadn't slept. He simply stands there, not speaking, and Arthur raises an eyebrow.

"How can I help you, Robb?" he asks, growing mildly alarmed at how pale he is. "Are you well?"

"Yes, I'm well," says Robb. "That is, not exactly, no, not at all."

Arthur frowns. "Is your family all right? I saw your lady mother just last night and she did not seem worse for wear."

"No, it's not them, no one's ill, it's..." Robb swallows. "It's Rhaenys. _Princess_ Rhaenys, I mean."

"What about her?" He hasn't noticed her acting unusual either, let alone at Robb's level of discomfort. "You should sit down, you look faint."

"I can't, I've rehearsed this all in my head and it's already not going as planned," he laments.

"As planned?"

Robb is petrified, something Arthur's never seen on him before, yet he does manage to stammer out some words. "I-I—I've grown very...fond of the princess and I know she is of me as well and I...I've come to ask for her hand, ser. She's already agreed, but..."

Arthur would laugh, if the boy weren't so sincere—and terrified. "Why have you come to me? You should be asking this of the queen and Lord Stark. I have no say in these matters."

"I know you're close to the queen," he says delicately. "And you're the closest thing Rhaenys has to a father."

 _You don't know the half of it_ , Arthur thinks.

"What if I refuse?" he asks. "What if Elia does?"

Robb's face falls. "I don't know. I can't imagine marrying anyone else, and the thought of her wedding some Lannister or Tyrell or someone is—"

"Agonizing," Arthur fills in, all too aware of that very feeling. "Well, I will give you my approval, for what little that's worth. I think you're a good man, Robb. Though you should know that if you ever hurt her, I'll run you through."

He's only half-serious, but what little color was left in Robb's face drains. "I would never—I won't—I couldn't—"

"Calm down," Arthur chuckles. "Save all that for Her Grace."

"What do you expect she'll say?" Robb asks in trepidation.

"I cannot speak for her," he says. "But she knows you are no more at fault for what happened all those years ago than Elia herself, and she's never wanted Rhaenys to marry someone out of duty rather than love. I wouldn't say your chances are as bad as you think. Don't lose hope just yet."

Robb tries to restrain the grin that spreads across his face, but it fails spectacularly. "Thank you, Ser Arthur. This means everything to me."

Arthur puts a hand on his shoulder. "Rhaenys's happiness is all that matters."

Robb nods, bids him farewell, and practically skips out of the room. Arthur smiles.


	59. Maekar x Dyanna

_For a 1+5 meme._

 _ **thatgirlnevershutsup asked:** For the first sentence: "You are loving this, I can tell."_

* * *

"You are loving this, I can tell."

Dyanna tries to hold in her laugh, but doesn't very well succeed—her strong, invincible husband brought to heel by a common chill, his nose red and his voice hoarse, is just too charmingly amusing not to enjoy. "I brought you some food, my love."

He glances at the plate of blood orange wedges in her hand and grumbles, "Anna, I don't _want_ to eat."

"And _I_ don't want to ban you from my bed for a month, but I will."

He takes the orange.


	60. Queen Rhaenys

_For a 1+5 meme._

 _ **riana-one asked:** You were born a queen, Rhaenys._

* * *

 _You were born a queen, Rhaenys._

She doesn't feel like one anymore; she doesn't feel like much of _anything_ down in this dank dungeon with the smell of her own blood around her, able to sleep only when she passes out from the pain. She thought she'd died when that bolt went through Meraxes's eye and she fell to the ground, yet somehow the Ullers had brought her back. They haven't harmed her, technically, they've just let her lie here, day in and day out, only bothering to come down now and then to make sure she doesn't die.

"Bring me a quill," she croaks to the gaoler when she sees him next, feeling herself teetering on the edge of madness from sheer isolation and _agony_. "You will have your peace."


	61. Lyanna

_For a 1+5 meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** First sentence fic: dont you dare look outside darling, everything is on fire._

* * *

 _Don't you dare look outside, darling, everything is on fire._

The phrase comes into her head, but she doesn't know where she heard it; it's dramatic enough to be from Old Nan, or Brandon, but that doesn't sound right. It doesn't matter anyway, she supposes, since she won't live long enough to figure it out. Everything is pain, everything is fire, from the throbbing between her legs to the emptiness of her belly to her sluggish thoughts to the overwhelming _wrongness_.

And then, through it all, somehow she hears his voice, somehow he's _found_ her.

She screams his name.


	62. Rhaella x Doran II

_For a word meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Doran x Rhaella ruins_

* * *

It had taken a week for her to truly realize she's not in some dream, that her family has been ousted from power, her husband and firstborn dead, her good-daughter and grandchildren murdered, life as she'd known it in tatters. More unbelievably, that she's found safe haven in Sunspear, despite all that her family had done to the prince's. She still expects the other shoe to drop, that Doran has been scheming to betray her location in exchange for…well, she doesn't know what, but for something. She's never met an altruistic man, save perhaps Uncle Ormund, but he's long gone.

On Doran's request she spends her days in the Water Gardens rather than the city, until he can figure out what to do with her. She presumes the crown knows she's here, though she supposes it's possible they think she'd escaped elsewhere. She hates that she's put Doran and his family in danger, but where else could she go? Nowhere else in the world would help her.

As courteous as the attendants are here, she does look forward to his visits. He has been a kind friend, who lets her talk without interruption or judgment, and sometimes he brings little Arianne with him who had immediately decided Viserys would be her new playmate.

"It just feels so tenuous," she tells him now as they watch the children frolic in the pools, blissfully unaware of the tempest brewing. Dany is contentedly asleep on her lap. "I'm afraid of what could happen. Maybe I don't know how to be hopeful anymore. I think Aerys rid me of that long ago."

"I don't believe that. It takes a rare strength to endure what you did. It _will_ get better."

"How do you know?" she can't help but ask. "The Usurper will not rest until my children are dead."

"You shouldn't call him such," Doran frowns. "Even if true, it is unwise to tempt provocation."

"I'm supposed to let it go?" she asks. "Are you to let Elia's murder go? The deaths of her children? They were _butchered_ , my prince."

Doran looks away, pained. "I will not allow myself to give in to revenge. That path leads only to the death of more innocents and Dorne has suffered enough."

Viserys's squeal of laughter reaches her, and she sighs. "You're right. I have not had freedom since I was a girl, I have let it get to my head."

"The gods will give Robert and the Lannisters what they deserve, soon or late," says Doran. "We should not allow ourselves to be corrupted because of them."

"You have remarkable patience."

"It's my mother's doing," he explains. "She would always say that a patient man has the higher ground against his opponent, for he cannot be goaded into reaction. But I admit it is often trying, Your Grace."

"Rhaella," she says, almost pleading. "My name is Rhaella. Please, use my name."

He nods, after a moment of indecision. "Rhaella."


	63. Visenya, Rhaenys

_For a 1+5 meme._

 _ **dragonofmoon asked:** Aegon loved Rhaenys more than anyone, more than Visenya but Visenya was still her big sister after all_

* * *

Aegon loved Rhaenys more than anyone, more than Visenya, but Visenya was still her big sister, after all.

She had laughed when she was told Meraxes had been killed and Rhaenys had not made it out of Dorne. _Maybe_ she could believe Meraxes—not even Balerion is invincible—but Rhaenys? For as much as she finds her sister's love of songs and knights silly, she's as much a warrior as their brother and Visenya herself, she'd never let herself be taken by _Dornishmen_ , she'd fight back, she'd win, she'd burn them all, she'd...

It's when she realizes that no one would dare joke about this that she feels the leash she keeps on her fury snap, like a hempen rope stretched too far.

 _I will find you, little sister_ , she vows, _and I will bring you home._


	64. Ned x Cersei

_**Anon asked:** NedxCersei welcoming their first child or grandchild_

* * *

Being wed to Cersei has never been a treat. Not during their betrothal nor during their bedding nor during their year of marriage. She had never taken to Winterfell—has actively resisted doing so, in Ned's opinion—and had ever begrudged the fact that her brother had not been permitted to join her here. She blames Ned for that, he knows, even though he had no part in it and Ser Jaime's duties are squarely in King's Landing.

She had become even more irascible when she fell pregnant, but it did mean he no longer had to visit her chambers, so that had been a victory for them both. There is little affection in their marriage, and so it comes as a mild surprise when she goes to the birthing bed and it occurs to him that he prays not only for the babe's survival, but hers. And not because her death would be inconvenient or some such; simply because of _her_. She _does_ have a certain political aptitude (though had offended more Northern lords than she'd wooed), and on occasion she's even quite civil to him. They have much to work on, but perhaps in time things would smooth out?

It's a long labor, lasting well into the early morning hours, and then finally the midwife emerges from the room and gently hands him the child. "A girl, my lord."

She's a mix of them both, he sees, with Cersei's bright green eyes and his own dark hair, and Ned's quite certain he's never felt such joy as he does now. "May I see her?" he finds himself asking.

The woman is plainly taken aback, but allows him inside and leaves them alone. Cersei is a far cry from her usual composure, looking utterly exhausted, her face sheened with sweat. "I am sorry I did not give you a son," she says. She sounds angry, _frustrated_.

He sits in the chair by her bedside and shakes his head. "Think nothing of it," he says. "She is healthy, as are you, that is my only concern."

She frowns at him, trying to work through his words. "It truly doesn't matter to you?"

"There is plenty time for sons," he says, "and if none come, then I shall train this babe to rule. Winter is coming, and it cares not whether it is a man or woman who sits the castle."

"You are not like most men, Lord Stark."

"Nor are you most women, my lady." He warily reaches over to take her hand, and for once, she lets it stay.


	65. Daenerys x Maron II

_fuck daemon tbh_

* * *

It is rare enough for the maester to interrupt them in the evening hours, and rarer still for him to look troubled, yet tonight, he is both. "Humblest apologies," he says with a bow, "but I've just received this in the rookery and thought it prudent to bring at once. It's addressed to you, my princess."

Daenerys shares a look of surprise with Maron and then wriggles out of his embrace to receive the letter. She notices the seal first, and dread falls in the pit of her stomach. The three-headed dragon imprint is welcome; the color of the wax is not.

 _Daemon._

She slits open the seal and scans the contents of the letter, growing more and more incensed with every word, until finally— "The _nerve_!"

"What is it?" Maron asks, alarmed.

She tosses the letter aside to rummage around in his desk for supplies in order to write a letter of her own. "What kind of man has nine children with his wife and then claims to still love someone else eight years after she's wed?"

"Perchance he's sincere," says Maron, a frown between his brows. "Dany, if you…"

"Don't you dare 'Dany' me." She picks up a pillow from the floor and hurls it at him. "You're the only man I've ever loved, and you know it."

Her letter of response is short, to the point, hardly worth the parchment it's written on:

 _Do not contact me again._

 _Signed,_  
 _Princess Daenerys, Lady of Sunspear_

She seals it with the sun-and-spear of House Martell, commands the maester to send it at once, then returns to her husband to have her way with him—twice.


	66. Rhaenys x Myranda

_**Anon asked:** AU when Rhaenys is about to ascend the Iron Throne, and it's the last day she has with her girlfriend (Allyria Dayne, Mya Stone, Alayaya, Asha Greyjoy, or Myranda Royce! In case either speaks to you more!) as her own person before she becomes Queen of the Realm_

* * *

"You're going to be _queen_ tomorrow." Randa has been more morose by the day lately, her lovely lips in a sad pout. "Today's our last day."

"Stop being dramatic," says Rhaenys, rolling her eyes. "This isn't our last day. Or didn't you enjoy having Robb in our bed as much as he did?"

A slow smile spreads across Randa's face as she remembers. "Mm. Gods that was a good night. He does have stamina, your consort."

"Almost as much as me," Rhaenys purrs. "Are you up to the task, Lady Myranda?"

"Well, a vassal must always pay leal service to her liege." Randa straddles her, her grin as salacious as their couplings. "How shall I serve you, Your Grace?"

"Oh, I'm sure we'll think of something."


	67. Elia x Arthur VIII

_For a "ways to say 'I love you'" meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Elia Arthur, 9_

* * *

 _9\. "I saved a piece for you."_

No matter how big the argument, they try never to go to bed angry. It was a strategy Doran said he and Mellario used, and that although their marriage didn't work out, he credited the method with keeping it together as long as it did.

Normally, they do exactly that, and she can't quite say why last night was different. It wasn't even that important of an argument; frivolous, really. Yet despite that, Arthur had spent the night on the couch, and when she got up at six, he had already left for his morning run. The only thing that's kept her from stressing about it all day is that she's hardly had a second to sit down, let alone think. A five-car pileup had sent a dozen people into the hospital that she'd had to help triage, then she'd had back-to-back belligerent parents, then their weekly addict who feigns injury to get his oxycodone. That all in addition to her usual rounds while short-staffed. By the time she's finally able to leave, she's dead on her feet. Realizing she's starving, she grabs the last two chunks of a day-old coffee cake from the employee lounge.

The lights are on when she pulls into the driveway despite the late hour; old habits die hard, it appears, even when they're in a fight. He's passed out on the sofa, she discovers, but as soon as she locks the front door, he jolts awake, ever the light sleeper.

"Hey."

"Hi."

He shuffles into the kitchen, looking so adorably delectable that if she weren't exhausted, she'd climb him like a tree. "You're late tonight. Everything okay?"

"Mostly. Some severe injuries, but no fatalities at least." Taking the first step, she holds out the plate she'd snitched. "Here, I saved a piece for you. It's half-stale, but…"

"You brought me old hospital food?"

"It's a _gesture_."

He smiles. "Thank you. And I'm sorry." He pauses, glances at the cake, then asks, "…do I have to eat that?"

"No, you don't." Laughing, she takes his hand. "Come to bed. I don't sleep well without you there."

When he kisses her, she feels everything shift back into place.


	68. Elia x Arthur XIV

_For a "ways to say 'I love you'" meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Elia / Arthur. 3_

* * *

 _3\. "No, no, it's my treat."_

She is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Whatever could go wrong has gone wrong, and she's only halfway through her shift. No more tragedies than most, just little things: a misplaced patient chart, bungled blood work, a resident who should go back to med school, the works. And then, as she's taking the elevator down the cafeteria to _finally_ take her lunch break–with only one other person in the car, too, a nice change from the usual dozen–the elevator shudders to a stop.

She tries jamming the buttons, but it's no good, and her cell has no signal either. "You have _got_ to be joking," she despairs. "How does this happen in a _hospital_?"

She presses the alarm button and goes through the procedure with the emergency crew on the other end. Half an hour, they tell her, since it's not an _emergency_ , which is exactly thirty minutes more than she'd wanted.

"Bad day?" She glances at her fellow trapped companion for the first time; even through her immense frustration, she doesn't fail to notice he's probably the most handsome man she's met in this place. Not that it _matters_.

"You have no idea." She slumps to the ground and leans her head against the wall. A pang of hunger hits her and she grumbles, "I didn't even get lunch."

He sits down beside her and pulls from his jacket a granola bar. "Here," he offers.

"That's nice of you, but I couldn't," she says, suddenly embarrassed. "I'm sorry, sir, that was unprofessional of me to complain to you."

"Arthur, not 'sir,'" he says. "Complain away, I won't tell. And please take it, Ms…" he glances at her name tag, "Elia."

She starts to protest, but then a rebellious voice in her head points out, _It's just a granola bar._

"Thank you," she says. It's not exactly chicken marsala, but it would do. "So, um, what brings you here?"

"My sister's having a baby," he says. "I was deemed useless so they sent me down to get food."

Elia smiles; she'd seen more useless brothers than she can count. "How's the father holding up?"

Arthur scowls. "Not present."

"Oh." She's seen more absent fathers than she can count, too. "Well, I'm sure everything will go just fine. We have a great team here."

Talking is easy after that; surprisingly so, given that she's still hungry and annoyed, and she doesn't even know this man. She learns he's a schoolteacher, that his sister's a professional dancer, that he has a Labrador named Dawn, and that his hometown is not far from her own. And when the elevator shudders to life again, she learns she's almost disappointed.

"I've got to run," says Elia, after. "Thank you for the granola bar, and the company."

"How about a proper lunch?" he asks quickly. "With me, I mean."

 _Is he asking me out on a date?_ she wonders. It's not the first time that's happened during a shift, but usually they don't look nervous.

"I can't. This elevator thing killed my lunch break, I'll just grab something from the vending machine. But I appreciate the offer."

"Yeah, of course," he says. "You're busy. Sorry."

He starts off towards the cafeteria, and before she can stop herself, she calls out his name. He turns around, surprised. "I, um…I get off at nine," she says. "We could…we could get dinner or something, if your sister isn't still in labor."

"Sure," he smiles. "Dinner then."


	69. Ned x Cat II

_For a "ways to say 'I love you'" meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** Ned/Cat 37 please_

* * *

 _37\. "Can I kiss you?"_

She's been prepared for this night her entire life, what to expect, how to act, to be quiet and pliant. To do her duty without complaint. But as she's carried off through the halls of Riverrun by men she'd known since birth, her clothes more and more in tatters, her heartbeat quickens. This wasn't how it was supposed to go, she'd thought…

Lord Stark is all but tossed into the room shortly after she is, and the door is pulled shut and all of a sudden it's just the two of them, each completely bare or near enough. Eddard isn't horrible to look at, all told, but he's no Brandon and on top of that, even if he _were_ Brandon she doesn't know that this…this…this _fear_ would be any less.

Filling her head is no longer the fanciful tales of romance and love, but the more brutish ones, of wives who cry themselves to sleep at night.

But she's a Tully of Riverrun, and she will not cower, she _cannot_. She feels clammy and her heart is in her throat, but her hands are steady as she lets the remainder of her wedding dress drop to the ground.

Eddard looks her up and down only once before looking only into her eyes. If she didn't know better, she'd say he's as terrified as she is. He reaches up a hand as though to touch her cheek, but changes his mind halfway through.

"May I kiss you?" he asks her.

She blinks, taken aback. "What?"

A blush runs up his neck, but he asks again, "May I kiss you?"

"Why?"

"I would have you willing, Lady Catelyn."

He _isn't_ Brandon, and this _wasn't_ her choice, but it wasn't his either. And even though they _must_ lie together, how many men would ask for her permission? Somehow, she has a feeling that if she'd told him no, he would wait.

It is that, and not anything else, that has her saying, "Yes, my lord, you may kiss me."


	70. Jeyne x Theon

_For a "ways to say 'I love you'" meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** 50 theon/jeyne pls_

* * *

 _50\. "I still think you're beautiful."_

Her childhood seems like a lifetime ago. _Winterfell_ seems like a lifetime ago. The Winterfell she used to know, that is. She can scarcely believe it was only a couple years ago she was calling Arya names and fantasizing about her future husband with Sansa. It all seems so frivolous now, so _stupid_.

They had both been so sure their husbands would be good men, handsome ones, that they'd live their lives happy with a dozen children. What fools they were. She has Ramsay, and Sansa…well, no one knows where Sansa is anymore. Probably dead like everyone else.

It is strange, what she remembers from then, what sticks with her. So many memories have faded away now. She can hardly even remember Sansa's face. Gods only know why she remembers that one day with Theon, a meaningless blip of a conversation so long ago, but she does. She had been upset that one of the boys in the yard had called her hair ugly, of all things; she'd thought that was the worst insult the world could hurl at her, a boy saying he didn't like her hair.

But it had mattered at the time, and a drunken Theon had found her weeping on one of the staircases and she'd told him what happened. And then he'd told her _he_ thought she was beautiful. He'd promptly thrown up and stumbled off to his chambers, and she doubts he remembers it and _certainly_ knows he wasn't serious, but for some reason it's stuck with her through all the pain and despair. Theon had called her pretty, once. She's not so anymore, if ever she was. Yet still, somehow, she holds onto that night like a tether. That stupid, childish, meaningless night, the last vestige of her innocence.


	71. Aegon x Betha

_For a "ways to say 'I love you'" meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** 74 with aegon x betha :)))_

* * *

 _74\. "We can share."_

It's not exactly roomy, hiding beneath the unused table in the back of the hall, but currently she'd rather be nowhere else. _Certainly_ not amongst the guests, whom she'd only narrowly avoided in her quest to find a hiding place. She'd been a late bloomer, her mother called it, but now that she's begun to look more woman than girl, so have come the _men_. Mostly old, gouty ones, too. Her mother and father came up with some excuse, she's sure, to have this gathering but she knows better. She knows they're looking to pair her off with someone.

 _It's past time, Betha_ , they say.

 _You should be wed, Betha_ , they say.

 _Stop being so picky, Betha_ , they say.

So now here she is, hiding, fully aware that it's very childish and that she really ought to button up her indignation. She does peek beneath the tablecloth every now and then, though, to watch the goings-on. If nothing else, feasts are good for that. She sees a woman stuff some bread down her blouse to save for later; the tallest man she's ever seen nearly trample two other guests as he looks around for someone; her father's cheeks getting ruddier and ruddier the more wine he consumes; a group of little girls gossiping.

She's so engrossed that she doesn't hear the patter of footsteps, and so when the tablecloth lifts, she lets out a surprised yelp. It's no one she recognizes, just some boy with a shaved head and dark eyes who looks as surprised to see her as she is to see him.

"Go away," she hisses.

He doesn't. Instead, he crawls forward and lets the tablecloth drop so they're both concealed underneath it. "Why are you hiding?"

"To get away from presumptuous men like you," she snaps. "Leave me _alone_."

"I'm hiding, too," says the boy. "If I leave, he'll see me."

" _Who?_ "

The boy nudges aside the tablecloth and points at the clueless giant she'd spotted earlier. "I'm squiring for him."

"And you're hiding from him why?"

"Because it's fun," the boy shrugs. He thrusts out his hand and says, "I'm Egg. Who are you?"

"Egg?" she snickers. "What kind of name is _Egg_?"

"Mine," he says, offended. "Well, it's short for something but I can't tell you what."

"How roguish of you."

"What's your name? I told you mine."

"I didn't _ask_ for yours." He gives her a petulant look and she rolls her eyes. "Betha. My name is Betha."

"If I promise not to talk, can I stay, Betha?" he asks.

She looks him up and down, from his stupid shaved head to his leather boots. She doesn't particularly want to have this Egg here, but then again, if her mother asks she could say she met a boy and it wouldn't be a lie.

"Very well," she consents. "You can stay."


	72. Elia x Arthur XV

_**Anon asked:** I love the Arthur/Elia fic! Hope you continue it!_

 _Part 1 - Chapter 35_

 _Part 2 - Chapter 46_

* * *

It doesn't matter. It doesn't mean anything. This is just tension relief.

It's been her mantra of late, and it's a mantra that's much easier to believe right afterwards. The days in between are another thing entirely. Even Small Council meetings are distracting; Ser Barristan is the Lord Commander, but he has the same white cloak as…

She tosses aside her quill and massages her temples. She shouldn't have started on the crown's finances, not when they're so dull and her mind is so preoccupied. She hadn't intended for things to go this way, not at all, and then…gods, she wish she didn't remember it as though it had happened only yesterday.

The night had been much like this, though then she'd been checking over the maester's requisition for more supplies, many of which would require her to order from Essos at a hefty price. He'd come in halfway through to ask her if she wouldn't mind allowing him to take Ser Jaime away for a few hours a day for more training, and soon she'd found herself unloading all her worries on him.

He'd touched her shoulder in sympathy, just her shoulder, yet it had been enough.

She'd pulled him to her with a cry, kissed him until her lips were bruised. He hadn't resisted; just the opposite, as if he'd been wanting it. Things had gone from bad to worse, and before she knew it, they had ended up in her bed, all her stresses on hold, her body filled with nothing but bliss. She hadn't even had the capacity for awkwardness, not for a full hour.

They'd agreed it would never happen again, chalked it up to temporary madness. She's the Queen Regent, he's a Kingsguard, and a newly reinstated one at that—it _couldn't_ happen again. Certainly no one could ever discover it.

Their resolve had lasted all of a fortnight before he was knocking on her door in the dead of night and she was answering. They never exchange words, which serves her just fine. She doesn't have any idea what she'd even say. It had helped in the beginning, the release had calmed her thoughts and cleared her mind, but now it's in many ways worse than it was before. Now, she can't look at him without thinking of their nights together or how she can map every scar on his body, or the sound of her name on his lips as he finishes.

There's nothing else to be done. She has to end it, and she _will_.

But when he comes to her that night, the words don't leave her mouth; instead, she shoves him onto her bed and climbs on top of him, as usual. She lies with him twice, after which normally he would dress and leave in silence the same way he arrived. Except this time, she speaks.

"I don't think we should do this anymore."

He pauses, tunic in hand, and looks at her inscrutably. "Have I done something?"

"No," she says, because he didn't, not really. "It's just not a good idea. If someone finds out, we're both ruined."

"Two months we've lain together and _now_ you're worried?" He narrows his eyes. "No, something's changed. What is it?"

"Nothing's _changed_ , Arthur," she snaps. "This was a poor decision from the start and I should never have let it get this far."

"Then why did you?"

"Because I wanted to fuck someone," she says sharply. "Because I hadn't had a man in my bed since Rhaegar got me pregnant with Aegon, and not one I've had a choice in since Yorick."

"Yorick Sand?" he asks, as though that's remotely important.

"Yes. He was interested in me and I didn't want to lose my maidenhood to a stranger with people listening at the door. What does it matter? That was half a lifetime ago."

"It doesn't matter."

"This has never _meant_ anything, Arthur," she says. "What we've been doing, it's never meant anything."

He dresses in stony silence but just as he gets to the door, he asks, "Why did you choose me, Elia? You could have picked any man to bed and they'd have been perfectly willing. It's not for my conversation, since we never talk. So why me?"

"Because…"

 _Because why?_ She'd never thought about it, even to herself. He's not wrong, not _all_ the courtiers or servants are uncomely, and she's sure plenty wouldn't mind lying with the Queen Regent. Certainly almost anyone else would have less risk as none of them would be of the Kingsguard, and none of them had the checkered past that she and Arthur have. So why _had_ she chosen him? That first night maybe she could have determined was opportunistic, but the rest?

"I don't know," she says quietly.

"Right. Well, don't worry, I won't visit you again."

She's taken aback at the curtness of his tone and can't help but ask, "Did it mean something to _you_?"

He leaves without giving her an answer.


	73. Ned x Cat III

_For a "ways to say 'I love you'" meme._

 _ **Anon asked:** 7 then [with Ned/Cat]_

* * *

 _7\. "I dreamt about you last night."_

If he thought about it, he would think it inappropriate that he spends more time with Catelyn than Brandon does, that the brightest days of his week are when they share a lit class even though he's very, very bad at it, that more times than he cares to admit he's had the urge to run his fingers through her thick auburn hair.

 _If_ he thought about it, which he doesn't. Because thinking about it would mean acknowledging that he's in love with his brother's girlfriend, and that is something he will _not_ do.

She meets him in the North Hall atrium as she does every Monday and Wednesday, her cheeks pink from the cold and her face in a scowl. "How is it ten degrees outside and you look like you could stay out here for hours?"

Ned shrugs. "I like the cold."

"Yes, I've noticed. The whole lot of you Starks are crazy, that's what I say."

Ned merely smiles. He holds the door for her and they find their seats; unassigned, technically, but theirs nonetheless. Ned glances at her out of the corner of his eye as she de-layers, shimmying out of her coat, hoodie, and scarf until she's left in just a navy turtleneck that matches her eyes.

"Oh, I meant to tell you!" she exclaims. "I dreamt about you last night."

"A-About me?" he asks, officially no longer paying attention to the lecture.

"Yeah, I thought it was strange, too," she says. "I can't even really remember what happened, just that you were in it with me."

"Was it…a good dream?"

"Of course," she laughs. "How could a dream with you in it ever be bad? You're the best man I know, Ned."

"Apart from Brandon, you mean."

Catelyn's face falls. " _Including_ Brandon," she sighs. "I know he drinks too much and I know he hasn't been faithful. You must think me stupid for staying with him."

"You're not stupid, Cat. You love him, that's all."

"I…I don't know that I do anymore," she whispers, as though confessing to a capital crime. "I think I have feelings for someone else."

"Who?" Ned's heart is beating in double-time. The way she's looking at him, he would almost think she means _him_ , if he didn't know better. And he does know better. She'd never fall for dull, boring, plain Ned who's far beneath her league, certainly not after Brandon.

She opens her mouth to respond, but the professor's voice rings out, "Mr. Stark, Ms. Tully, if you'd like to converse then do so outside my class, not during it."

Catelyn flushes bright red—he wonders if she's ever been reprimanded before—but Ned can't stop wondering who she means. Jason Mallister, maybe? She'd mentioned once that her lab partner is handsome, and he's on the rowing team, too.

Still, for all that he's no Brandon or Jason, her words echo in his ears like a song on repeat:

 _I dreamt about you._


	74. Elia, Rhaegar III

_**Anon asked:** Can you write a conversation between elia and rhaegar before their engagement._

* * *

He's pretty. She notices that first; it would be hard not to, even if the entire realm _hadn't_ always talked about his beauty, which it does. The silver prince, the songs call him, more beautiful than the dragonlords of old, with a voice that puts the nightingale to shame.

He _is_ beautiful, she's not about to deny such a thing, but almost unnervingly so, in a way. A perfectly shaved jaw, skin unmarred by scars, hair artfully pulled back from his face, not a flaw to speak of. His smile to her is subdued, his eyes doleful. She'd heard that about him, too, that being born amidst the conflagration at Summerhall had cast a curse of melancholy over him.

"Princess Elia," he greets. "I am pleased to meet you at last."

"The pleasure is mine, Your Grace."

"Rhaegar, please," he says, offering her his arm. She takes it and they begin walking along the grounds, the castle of Storm's End stalwart against the spray of the sea. "How are you enjoying your travels?"

"Well enough," she says. "But I'm afraid I'm not made for living north of the Red Mountains. It's far too cold and with far too little sun here."

Rhaegar glances upward and squints against the light. "The sun seems to be shining just fine."

"Only someone who has not been to Dorne could say that. This wouldn't even qualify for Kingsgrave, let alone Sunspear. Just as well for you, though, I fear you would burn that pale skin of yours."

"I suspect you're right," he says. "Still, there must be some things you like."

She looks around, trying to come up with something. "Well, it's greener."

"I hope to persuade you to appreciate more than that before the tourney's out," he laughs.

She hopes her smile is convincing. She's no fool, she knows her mother has been sending letters back and forth to the queen, and with the Baratheons' tragic end, Aerys's well-known desire for a girl with Valyrian ancestor, and the fact that she is two-and-twenty yet still unattached, the answer is plain. She wouldn't have been dragged up here for a stormlands tourney if it weren't for some grander purpose, nor would her mother look so damned _gleeful_. For the first time, she wishes she could scrub Daenerys's blood from her veins.

"Is that hope because I am to be your bride?" she asks him. "You needn't pretend, Rhaegar, we both know why I am here."

"Yes, I am to make the announcement at the final feast," he says. "Do I dissatisfy you?"

"Why, I hardly know you, my prince," she jests. "I cannot be expected to love you after ten minutes, can I?"

 _And I shan't ever_ , she thinks but doesn't say. She'd given her heart away a long time ago, and never really got it back.

"No, certainly not. Mayhaps friendship is more in order?"

"Friendship," she agrees. "I think I can manage that."


	75. Jon, Aegon, Robb x Rhaenys

_**babycakesbriauna asked:** Can you write where Jon plays match maker to Robb x Rhaenys? I love you Robb x Rhaenys fics. You are doing a service to the world._

* * *

He doesn't quite know how he got here, pretending to be engrossed in bowling while looking over his shoulder every seven seconds as he waits for his half-siblings to arrive so he can set up his sister with his cousin.

It sounds so absurd, so _ludicrous_ , what with everything that had happened. It had been Egg who approached him first about it, telling him that Rhaenys had been morose for months—morose and _furious_ , that is—after finding out her boyfriend had not been the person she thought he was.

 _What am I supposed to do about it?_ Jon had asked.

 _I thought your cousin might be good for her_ , had been the response. _It sounds weird, I know, but just think about it._

Jon had echoed that sentiment—Robb and _Rhaenys_? He'd blown Egg off entirely, but his brother's proposal had stuck with him. Robb _is_ the best man Jon's ever known, after all, and Jon knows he too has been having a rough time of it after Jeyne moved away abruptly and never answered his texts or calls. He can't imagine there's a girl Robb wouldn't be good for, but he can't say it would go two ways. He and Rhaenys have _always_ been at odds; hell, he's only met her four times in his entire life.

But…he _does_ know Egg, more or less. He wouldn't call it a friendship by any means, but there's a truce between them. And, well. Worst case, Robb and Rhaenys don't like each other, right? Plus, Egg was the one who started the whole thing, not him. Rhaenys might blame him, because of course she would, but he doesn't think Robb would.

Jon glances once more at the door while Robb steps up to the line for his turn, and this time, he sees them walk through. Rhaenys laughs at something Egg says to her, and it occurs to Jon that he's never seen that before; she's never done anything but scowl the other times he's seen her.

Robb gets a strike, but distracted as he is, Jon gets no more than six pins combined on his turn, and Robb ribs him good-naturedly. "Rickon's better competition than you," he jokes. "You're not usually such a bad player, are you sick or something?"

"I'm fine, I just…"

 _No time like the present._

He jerks his head in the direction of Egg and Rhaenys who have pulled on their shoes and are heading to the lanes. "Do you want to leave?" Robb asks, concerned. "We only have a few rounds left anyway."

"I'm not eight anymore," Jon grumbles. "I can face my own siblings."

Jon catches Egg's eye and gives a small nod. Egg nudges his sister, who instantly zeroes in on them, and her expression instantly sours. "What are _you_ doing here?" she snaps.

"Bowling."

Rhaenys glances up at the TV screen and snorts. "If you call that score 'bowling.'"

"Good to see you, too, sister." Jon wants to say more than that, but then remembers why he's here in the first place.

"Can I talk to you?" Egg interjects, as planned. He takes Jon by the elbow and they walk away from the lanes to the rack of bowling balls, well out of earshot. Egg gives him a conspiratorial smile. "Well, that's step one."


	76. Rhaegar, Daenerys, Quentyn, Mya

_**Anon asked:** I love your Elia fics they are awesomeness incarnate. If you are still taking requests can I get a reaction from Rhaegar where none of his kids are the dragon riders, just Dany and maybe Quentyn for lulz and screw canon?_

* * *

"I don't understand." Surely this is a dream of some kind. It couldn't _not_ be a dream. He stares at the three youths in front of him and, more unbelievably, at the beasts resting at their sides. He'd envisioned a scene such as this since he was a child, but most certainly not _this_ scene. He'd thought it would be himself and his siblings once, and then had been dead positive it would be his children, not… _this_.

"I named mine Vhagar," says Dany, gleeful next to her black-and-scarlet dragon. "Visenya was a great warrior."

"Nymeria," says Doran's boy next to his cream-and-gold. "She united all of Dorne."

The woman with the green-and-bronze dragon is most mystifying of all to him. "Green," says Mya Stone with a careless shrug. "He likes it."

Indeed, the dragon chirrups when she says its name, and Rhaegar wants to go drown himself in the Blackwater.


	77. Elia, Lyanna II

_**Anon asked:** If you are still doing requests- Rhaegar tries to make Lyanna his second queen, Elia & Lyanna successfully kill him off (Lyanna hates him since he murdered her family). Elia gets to be queen, Lyanna takes Jon to Braavos. Think two black Cadillacs._

 _ **Another anon asked:** Your Elia is to die for and she is nice to Lyanna (moontea). If it is not to late can I get an antidote to stupid Lyanna as second queen trope where Elia & Lyanna conspire & successfully murder Rhaegar & Elia is queen while Lyanna takes Jon to live in Essos._

* * *

"He was a good man, a great man, and could have been the noblest king the realm has ever known…"

Elia's glad custom dictates she wear a black veil, for it means no one can see her rolling her eyes at the High Septon's speech. Has the civil war her widower began vanished from everyone's memories already? If only they'd known what Rhaegar had planned, mayhaps they would not be so gracious. But then again, they hate her very existence, so mayhaps they would pay it no mind.

Elia places a white rose on Rhaegar's body and leans down as though to give him a final kiss. "You'll rot in the seven hells for what you've done," she whispers. "The world is well rid of you, my dearest husband."

The queen is next with a rose, her newborn daughter in her arms, and though her good-mother looks sad as she gazes upon her eldest son, there is grim acceptance there, too. Rhaegar had once been Rhaella's salvation, and then had turned into her nightmare. After Viserys and Rhaenys both place their own roses, the High Septon says some more decorative words and lights the pyre on which Rhaegar's bier rests. Rhaella turns away from the fire—Elia can't blame her, after Aerys's proclivities—but she watches his corpse go up in flames and feels the final burden lift from her chest.

At the funeral feast afterwards, Elia is the perfect hostess a she fields innumerable condolences from courtiers who never knew him. They're kinder than they ever were, and she sees through it in a trice; she's the Queen Regent now, and it is she they must appeal to to earn any favor at all. When finally she gets a reprieve, she locates the woman in the gray veil she'd seen at the funeral. She'd never met her before today, not in person, but she knows exactly who it is.

She stands at her side, but neither of them looks at the other, knowing there can never be a connection drawn. "I appreciate your assistance, Lady Lyanna," says Elia.

"Thank you for allowing me to assist," replies the wolf girl. "No one suspects?"

"No, not even the maester," she answers. "A burst vessel in the brain, he said, an unfortunate death but a natural one."

"I underestimated your skill."

"My brother is not the only one who can brew poison." She smiles to herself. "But it is you who delivered it, and quite well."

"It was my pleasure."

"The ship is ready to take you. _The Queen's Gambit_ , it's called. You'll find provisions on board. Braavos, you said?"

"Yes, I'd like a new start," says Lyanna. "Jon will know nothing of his father, I can promise you that."

"Then I wish you both the best. Do be sure to write if you need anything."

"I will." Elia doesn't have to look at her to know she's grinning. "To King Aegon, long may he reign."

"And to Rhaegar," adds Elia, "the King Who Never Was."


	78. Rhaenys, Rhaegar

_**Anon asked:** A continuation of the Queen Regent Elia AU where she sends Rhaegar to the Wall... Teenage Rhaenys visiting the Wall and having a confrontation with her shitty dad?_

 _ **Another anon asked:** Love your fics! Could you do a post rebellion AU with rhaegar mourning the divide between him and rhaenys as the years go by?_

 _Part 1 - Chapter 37_

* * *

It's the cold that hits her first. The nervousness is a close second, as much as she wishes she didn't have any. She's been preparing for this trip for months, ever since she passed her sixteenth name day, yet now that she's here, gazing up at seven hundred feet of ice and, more importantly, about to set eyes on _him_ after all this time, she feels a shameful urge to run and never turn back.

But she's a Martell, and she's a Targaryen, and she will not cower.

One long blast rings out from the top of the guard tower, an indication of riders approaching. She glances to her right where Uncle Lewyn sits on his destrier, and he gives her an encouraging nod. Ser Daemon Sand also accompanies her as Dorne's finest sword, and out of courtesy Lord Stark had sent Ser Rodrik Cassel to escort them north. The castellan has not shown them any disrespect, which is more than she can say for some of the others in Winterfell and the winter town they passed through. Oh, none had been outright hostile—she is the sister to the king, after all—but more than a few had shown her that her family continues to be blamed for what her father and grandfather did. She'd tried not to take it personally, but still it stung. It's not _her_ fault that all this happened, and it's not her _mother's_ fault either.

Lord Stark, though, at least _he_ had greeted them cordially. His lady wife had been gracious beyond measure, and she'd met the children as well; from his heir Robb, near to her age, down to the littlest one, a babe still in arms. Lady Lyanna, Lord Stark had said, had left on a hunting trip for a few days; Rhaenys hadn't doubted the trip was made on purpose, though she was admittedly glad that it was.

She's jarred from her thoughts by the sound of the two massive gates opening, revealing some men of the Watch headmanned by who she assumes is the Lord Commander. He certainly _looks_ like he's from Bear Island, not that she's met someone from there before.

She gracefully dismounts, Ser Rodrik, Ser Daemon, and Uncle Lewyn after her, and they all hand off their horses to the men. Lord Commander Mormont nods respectfully to her. "Your Grace, we are honored."

"The honor is mine, Lord Mormont," she replies. "Your service here is invaluable. If you'd be so kind as to show me around?"

Ostensibly, her trip is to assess the state of the Watch—see what or who they need, for the crown hasn't made a trip here since her great-great-grandfather did as a boy—but it escapes no one's notice that it had not been a representative of the crown, but the daughter of one of the black brothers.

The Watch is in a sorrier state than she ever expected, shockingly so, and she intends to have her mother send the necessary supplies and men. The Others are a myth, of course, but the wildlings are no laughing matter. Mormont had told her they'd seen increasing raids and there are rumblings of a King Beyond the Wall.

It is too late for a visit by the time they finish the walkabout, and her sleep is restless despite the plethora of furs and the roaring fire. At the crack of dawn, she stops the first man she comes across and commands, "Show me to him."

He doesn't bother playing dumb, nor refusing her, and he promptly brings her not to the barracks but to the library. He's the only one there, and she's not surprised—by the looks of the men here, he's the only one who's stepped foot amongst the books in years.

"Hello, Father."

She feels a catch in her chest as she sets eyes on him. He looks older, but otherwise the same as she remembers. Same silver-gold hair, same indigo eyes, same lean frame, same air of sadness that she'd always wanted to fix when she was little. Beautiful still, far more handsome than all his black brothers combined, but…weary. _Human_.

"Rhaenys." He doesn't move for several seconds, and then rushes over and pulls her into his arms for the first time since she was no higher than his knee. He's warm, and smells of smoke like he always used to.

She's not sure what to feel. She recalls well what it was like to be loved by him as a child, he had been her favorite person in all the world and she had been his, but now…she doesn't know. It feels different. She returns the hug, but it's almost perfunctory, a duty she has to perform.

He leans down to kiss her forehead and murmurs, "I am gladdened to see you."

"I didn't come here for you."

"Didn't you?"

She doesn't look away, but it's a near thing. She hadn't thought she was so transparent, but being right here in front of him, finally, the child in her is tempted to see only her papa, not the crown prince who nearly destroyed their entire family. How could two so very different men live in the same body? How could the man who had made her feel so safe be the same one who ran off with a girl of five-and-ten?

She steps back from him and rallies her courage. "Why did you do it?" she asks. "Thirteen years and I've never understood and I need you to tell me. Why were we not enough for you? Was it me? Was it Mother? Egg? Why did you leave us? All for a girl younger than I am? _Why?_ Did you truly abandon us for some ancient fairy tale you read in a book? You risked our lives for _that_?"

"It was never you, you have to know that," he says. "Of _course_ you were enough. It was never…I _love_ you, Rhaenys. You're my little girl."

"I needed you!" she cries. "I was _scared_ and I needed my father, and you weren't there. You said you'd always be there for me and you _weren't_!"

Father shuts his eyes as though her words are swords. "I never intended for this to turn out the way it did. Not the war, not Lord Rickard or Lord Brandon, I didn't intend any of it."

"I don't _care_. I don't care what you _intended_ , the fact is your decisions could have killed us all."

"I _know_ , Rhaenys," he says wearily. "I _know_. Do you think I've spent a decade here not wondering where it all went wrong? Every day I wish I could change the way things ended up, every day I wish I could fix things with you, and with your mother too."

"Don't waste your breath. The gods will not listen, nor will we."

"Starfish, I—"

"Don't _call_ me that!" she yells, near hysterics despite all her efforts. "You don't get to call me that."

"All right." He gives her a sad smile. "You look just like your mother, you know. You have all her beauty, and her fire. I see very little of myself in you."

"That disappoints you, does it? I'm not some silver princess?"

Father goes quiet. "Surely Elia has told you of the day we presented you at court?" Rhaenys does look away now. Mother _had_ told her, as it happens. "My father wouldn't even touch you, he said I should leave you outside, that you weren't worth the Targaryen name. I told him you were as much a Targaryen as I am and that I wouldn't change one hair on your head. I would move heaven and earth for you."

"But you _didn't_ ," she snarls against the tears that threaten to well in her eyes. "You tossed me aside."

"So this is it then?" Father asks. "You'll hate me forever?"

"You have only yourself to blame. Don't you dare ask my forgiveness."

"Unbowed, unbent, unbroken," says Father resignedly. "No, I do not expect your forgiveness, my daughter."

She looks him up and down, once more fighting the urge to overlook it all, to pretend it never happened, to be a child again who thought he hung the moon in the sky. But suppress it she does. "Goodbye, Father."

She manages to make it to the stables before the tears finally overwhelm her.


	79. Rhaella x Doran III

_**Anon asked:** Can I step aboard good ship Rhaella x Doran and have Rhaella reacting to having her baby with a loving tender husband of her choice rather than her parents forcing her brother to rape her? Just happy Rhaella and Doran._

* * *

He's by her side through it all—it's yet another thing Dorne has surprised her with, that many of its menfolk prefer to be in the birthing room itself rather than wait elsewhere. She squeezes his hand so tightly she wonders if she'd broken it, but he never complains, just strokes her hair and assures her all will be well.

And it is. After hours of pain and worry, she hears a healthy wail and the midwife gently places the child into her arms. "A girl," she declares. "Congratulations, my lady princess."

The babe has the Martell look, but for the eyes: they're her own deep violet, peeking out from beneath black lashes. If there had been any lingering concern in her that Doran would be disappointed at a girl, it ebbs away when she looks up at him. He's not much of a smiler, her husband, but now there is an unabashed grin on his face.

He leans down to kiss the babe's forehead and then her own and murmurs, "You did well, Ella."

"Indeed I did," she says giddily. "Are we still agreed on the name? She doesn't look much like her ancestor."

"She doesn't, but I think Daenerys would approve all the same."

Rhaella smiles down at their daughter. "Princess Daenerys. You'll rule all of Dorne one day, little one."

"A day many years from now, I hope."

"Oh, assuredly so." Rhaella brings him down for a kiss and replies, "We ought to give her some siblings to play with, after all, and I think you're rather necessary for that, my love."

She thinks of all the time they have ahead of them, the family they've begun and would continue, her adoring husband. She almost didn't have this, she knows, she almost had Aerys, her brother who pulled her hair and told her she'd amount to nothing. Now, she has Doran and their Daenerys, a good-brother who seems to have a new child every time he comes to Sunspear, and a good-sister who shines as brightly as the sun.

She closes her eyes in contentment, and rests.


	80. Valarr, Daemon II

_**pliocenecat asked:** Daemon II + ghost!Valarr_

 _[I know Daemon died years later as a hostage, but I'm going to pretend he was held in the black cells for a few weeks then would have been taken to the castle but ghost!Valarr got him out first.]_

* * *

He expects to see Matarys, when he dies. He expects to see Grandfather, and Mother, and Father, but Mat most of all. He has to apologize. He'd called his brother stupid one night then Mother had sent them to bed, and by morning Mother was dead—she must have been ill long before that, but she never let on—and Mat was unconscious. It took a day for him to die, and Valarr himself followed within the week.

 _I didn't mean any of it, Mat_ , he wants to say. _You look so much like Father that it was easier for me to be cruel to you, but I didn't mean it._

Instead, all he sees is white. No family, no nothing, just endless _white_.

"Is anyone here?" he calls out. He turns in a circle, but still—nothing. White, and silence. "Anyone? What is this?"

Is this to be his punishment? Are the gods shaming him for not living up to his father? The great Baelor Breakspear, invincible, the Warrior reborn, handsome, charming, generous, the greatest crown prince of them all…Valarr is none of that. He's only ever had a shred of any of those. Handsome _enough_ , charming _enough_ , skilled _enough_ , but never _special_.

He would never know true renown, never know what it feels like to triumph legitimately over a fearsome opponent like Father did over Daemon Blackfyre. He would only ever draw the easy matches, or opponents who throw the tilt to make him look good.

Mat had been the one who showed signs of having their father's prowess. The master-at-arms had been genuinely proud when Mat accomplished something, where it was almost always resignation when he trained Valarr.

Surely, this must be the gods' wrath for his sins. What kind of older brother is envious of his younger? What kind of future king lets men lose on purpose against him? Mayhaps his son will be his better, if he has one. Kiera should be safe, she'll have made it to Dragonstone by now, and Aerys has the most talented maesters in the realm. Perhaps Valarr can be the _father_ of a great king, at least. That's better than having no legacy to speak of, is it not?

It's as he's pondering this that a flash of black catches his eye, and he scrambles to find it again. "Mat?" he asks aloud. It had looked like his brother's hair, dark and long. " _Matarys!_ Where are you? Brother!"

And then he sees it again, and he runs towards it—then pitches forward. He shuts his eyes against a fall that never comes, and when he opens them, the white is gone. Or, rather, different. He's staring up at the pristine white walls of a giant castle, and instantly sounds assault his ears, sounds and _color_.

Could it be this was all just a fever dream? Could it be he'd just passed out and now he's…all right, he's not sure where he is, but it _feels_ real. A woman holding the hand of a small child approaches him and he hurries towards her. "My lady, I've lost my way," he says. "Could you tell me where I am?"

She doesn't reply, doesn't even _look_ at him. Well, she's rude, but he _does_ take after his father in looks far more than his mother; perhaps the woman didn't like that. It wouldn't be the first time someone had regarded him in disdain. The figure with the black hair is no longer in sight, but then Valarr sees a different figure, a _pair_ of figures—a small boy with a shaved head, and a man at least half a foot taller than Father.

Joy blooms in his chest as he sprints across the field. If they're here, then no doubt _he_ is here, too! "Cousin! Ser Duncan!" he yells. "Cousin, I'm all right, see?" But Egg doesn't look at him either, nor the knight, despite the fact that Valarr is right in front of them. "Egg? Egg, can't…can't you see me?"

"Come, lad," says Ser Duncan. "Let's find a place."

They walk forward—no, _through_. Egg walks _through_ him, as though he's…he's…

Abruptly, the boy whirls around with a frown, and shivers. "Lad?" prompts Ser Duncan. "What is it?"

"I just felt…cold for a moment," says Egg. He shakes his head and turns back around. "Forget it, ser."

"Aegon!" he tries one last time, but the boy and his knight keep walking, perfectly oblivious, and Valarr feels his feeble hope shatter into a thousand pieces.

This _isn't_ real. No, _he_ isn't real. He's some kind of specter or ghost or something. Is _this_ the destiny the gods chose for him? Is he to spend eternity as a haunt? Is he bound to this castle or to Egg? Or is he bound to nothing? And what had become of the glimmer of Mat that he'd seen? Or had that not been Mat at all? But if not Mat, then _who_?

He feels a curious pull then, like a string yanked taut, and with a forlorn glance at his retreating cousin, he lets the feeling guide him through the grounds and into the castle, up a winding staircase and into someone's chambers, and then the pull stops. He looks around, confused, only to see a man emerge from behind a dressing screen, a man with dark hair. But it's not Mat, not remotely. This man has skin near as pale as the walls of the castle, and eyes like Egg's. There's something familiar about him, too, but Valarr can't place it.

"Why am I _here_?" he cries heavenward. "What do you _want_ from me?"

There's no answer, of course there isn't, and as Valarr tries to leave—maybe if he talks to Egg again, he can make him _hear_ —he finds that his feet are bound to the floor. He stares at the black-haired man in the room again; is _this_ who he's supposed to haunt?

"Who _are_ you?" he asks.

He's spared from wondering much longer when a pudgy man with lank blond hair enters the room and closes the door. "Alyn," greets the black-haired man. "How is it looking?"

"No one you shouldn't be able to best, Your Grace." Valarr feels as though someone has staved in his chest. _Your Grace?_ No…it couldn't be…

"I will show them all that I am my father's son," says the man. Says _Daemon Blackfyre_. Valarr knows now why he'd been struck with that odd feeling earlier. He hasn't seen Daemon since…gods, since they were children. It had only been once, but Valarr remembers the boy as goodnatured, friendly even. Everything his sire was not.

Valarr finds he has no choice but to follow Daemon through the tourney, listen as he tells everyone he is John the Fiddler, as he becomes smitten with Ser Duncan of all people. He nearly loses his mind when Egg is endangered, but somehow, some way, his cousin comes through alive, as does the hedge knight and even brave, broken Glendon Flowers. Valarr almost sobs in relief when he sees the army crest the hill; for the first time in a week, the gods let him leave Daemon's side, and it is to Lord Bloodraven's tent he rushes. He's his last hope, his _only_ hope.

"Uncle," Valarr tries, once they're alone.

He doesn't know why he's bothering, in truth. The woman hadn't heard him, Egg hadn't heard him, why would Lord Bloodraven be any different? Except the Hand tilts his head curiously, and looks around the room that to his reckoning is perfectly empty, and Valarr's breath catches.

"Uncle Brynden, can you hear me? It's Valarr. Please, tell me you at least can hear me."

Bloodraven's voice is little more than a murmur. "Baelor's boy…"

" _Yes_ ," Valarr exclaims. "Yes, it's me! I'm trapped, uncle. You have to help me. Your magic—it can free me from this place, can't it?"

He lurches forward and touches Bloodraven's arm. He doesn't shiver like Egg did, but his hand clenches into a fist and then relaxes. "This is the work of the gods," he says. "They have taken you where I cannot reach, little prince."

Valarr sinks to the floor, feeling more hopeless than ever. Bloodraven extends his hand, and for a moment, Valarr could swear he could feel his uncle's palm on his shoulder, solid and warm. "What am I to do?"

He doesn't have to see Bloodraven's frown to know the connection has been severed. He lets out a scream heard by no one and his vision goes white, the same whiteness as when he'd first entered this astral hell, and then he's gone from Bloodraven's tent and instead in a dank cellar.

No, not a cellar, a _cell_ , lit by not so much as a torch. Valarr would think himself alone, were it not for the faint breaths of a figure curled up on the floor. Valarr crouches down and tries to identify his companion, but he can't make out a single feature.

"Who's there?" asks the figure, jolting upright. His voice is a rasp, but Valarr recognizes it nonetheless.

"Daemon?" These are unmistakably the Black Cells, so if Daemon is here, it must have been Lord Bloodraven's doing. He supposes he can't blame him. As much as Daemon is not like his father, he had nevertheless attempted a coup against the crown. Valarr leans against the stone wall and grumbles, "I'm stuck with you again, am I?"

"Who's _there_?"

"Prince Valarr," he sighs. Bloodraven had heard him, sort of, but Daemon is no mage. "It's Prince Valarr and I'm a bloody _ghost_ and the gods want me to spend forever in this accursed place. At least you're _alive_."

Daemon shudders, though Valarr doesn't know if it's because of him or the cell. "Are you here to hurt me?"

"No," says Valarr, not that Daemon can hear him. "I couldn't even if I wanted to."

"Then I'm glad you're here, whatever you are. I am glad to not be alone. Will you stay?"

Valarr doubts he could leave anyway, but he finds himself feeling sorry for the man. Perhaps Daemon had not wanted to rebel because he wanted to usurp the throne, but because he felt he had no choice. Perhaps Daemon had always felt beholden to his father's legacy the same way Valarr had. Perhaps they are not so different. At least Father had not named Valarr after himself.

"I'll stay."

* * *

He doesn't know _how_ long he stays, exactly, even though Father had taught him how to measure time without the sun. He supposes the cells were designed that way, or maybe being dead has something to do with it. What he _does_ know is that Daemon's health steadily begins to decline as time passes.

He had talked aloud at first, meaningless drivel or stories of his time in Tyrosh, or anecdotes about his father that had made Valarr's fists clench in righteous anger. But not at this Daemon, never at this one. The talking dwindles, though, and Daemon spends more and more time asleep, and more than once he refuses the food the gaoler brings him even though he's only fed weekly.

 _He's going to die_ , Valarr realizes. _And then what? Will the gods be satisfied at forcing me to watch a man starve to death? And what of Bittersteel? Is he to crown Haegon with Daemon dead? Will the circle go round and round and round forever, Blackfyre against Targaryen until no one's left?_

He had already watched so many perish, and he's _tired_. Can ghosts get tired? Somehow, he knows Daemon is the answer, he _has to be_.

In all this time, he's never touched Daemon; the cells are cold enough as it is, and he's never wanted to make his companion any colder. But he touches him now, to wake him from his slumber. "Get up," he commands. "I'm getting you out of here and you will _live_ , and you will renounce all claims to the throne. Aerys will not listen, so you will go to my uncle Maekar at Summerhall and you will act in good faith as your father never did. You will help my uncle eradicate Bittersteel. The Blackfyres will never again threaten my family, do you understand?"

Daemon is so quiet that Valarr thinks he's fallen asleep again, but then, in scarcely a whisper— "I understand."

Valarr doesn't know how the information comes to him, how he knows to tell Daemon which hinges are rusted through or where the secret passage is or any of it. Daemon's movements are clumsy from exhaustion and malaise, but he follows Valarr's instructions to the letter and finally emerges from the passageway into the dark of night.

"Summerhall," Valarr commands again. "Go to Summerhall."

Daemon nods and Valarr closes his eyes. When he opens them again, it is not the white he saw before, but his little brother.


	81. Loreza, Rhaella x Doran

_**Anon asked:** This is a bit random but I adore your Rhaella fic. Can I get one of Betha or Rhaelle or Loreza giving the verbal smackdown to either Shaera or Jaehaerys and protecting her (and reminding Egg he is the bloody king?) Like Rhaelle cashing in her chips over being the only kid to do her duty & demanding protection for Rhaella or Betha reminding her daughter she isn't queen yet or just Loreza being Martell cool while the royals throw a hissy fit._

* * *

Loreza would wonder for years what might have happened had she not run into Rhaella in the hall that night.

But run into her she did, the girl stricken with horror. It had taken several minutes to calm her enough for coherent speech, and had then all come out in a rush, from eavesdropping at her parents' door to hearing their plans to her panic. Loreza wants to reassure her that the prince and princess would never truly do such a thing, but it would be a lie. They had already so carelessly spurned their own betrothals, and she's never liked the look on the prince's face when he speaks of _foretelling_.

Rhaella's not her child, but by all the gods, Loreza will not sit idly by while this little slip of a girl is wed to the brother she hates. Not in all seven _hells_ will she let this be.

She tells Rhaella to rest and then makes her way down to the king and queen's chambers. It is not too late, she doesn't think; she just hopes they will be amenable to her proposition.

"Ah, Loree!" greets Betha amicably. She's clad in only her bedrobe, her hair loose around her shoulders, but as ever, she seems to care not for propriety. Loreza likes that about her.

"I've had a thought," Loreza says. "Would you mind if I…?"

"Of course, of course!" Betha beckons her forward and shuts the door then calls over her shoulder, "Egg! Come here."

The king, too, is without his crown and courtly raiments. Loreza's always thought he's looked younger and more handsome without them, but it's not her place to comment. "Princess," he says, inclining his head. "What brings you by?"

"I was talking with Ella just moments ago, and something occurred to me." She avoids mentioning _why_ she'd been talking with Rhaella. "It got me to thinking. Ella will be three-and-ten before the year is out, and I've noticed there has been no word of a betrothal for her."

"Oh…well, yes, I suppose it _is_ about that time," says Betha. "Have you someone in mind?"

"I do not wish to overstep," says Loreza carefully, "but I wonder if you'd consider my Doran? He's near enough to Ella's age, and he's a good boy. I think she'd enjoy Dorne very much."

"Doran?" asks Aegon curiously. "He's a bit young, is he not?"

"He'll be eleven in two months' time," says Loreza. "Young, yes, but not so young for a betrothal I shouldn't think. Marriage, of course, would not be for years yet."

Betha and Aegon exchange the sort of glance that Loreza often does with her Trystane, speaking a conversation without words. "We will consider it," says Betha with a smile. "Thank you for coming to us."

Loreza curtseys and takes her leave, a grin slowly spreading across her face.

* * *

Rhaella looks so despondent that Loreza wants to comfort her, but in front of the full court as they are, it would be unseemly to do so. No matter, she would be happy soon, Loreza has no doubt.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the court," declares Aegon as he draws a petrified Rhaella to his side, "it gives me great pleasure to announce the betrothal of my granddaughter Rhaella to Prince Doran of Sunspear."

There are exclamations and mutterings amongst the crowd—Loreza would expect nothing less from these creatures—but none so loud as from Prince Jaehaerys. "Father!" he hisses.

Aegon ignores him, or else doesn't hear him. "I trust you will all share in our happiness as we celebrate this with a feast."

Loreza can't say much for the gentry, but it's all worth it to see Rhaella's expression. There's shock there, but _elation_ , too. Her smile is as radiant as the moon, and Aegon presses a kiss to the top of her head; if only he _knew_. Loreza can feel Prince Jaehaerys's stare on her and purposefully keeps her gaze elsewhere. It would be unwise to risk gloating.

Rhaella finds her after the conclusion of the feast, a healthy flush in her cheeks, and she wraps her arms tightly around Loreza's middle. "This is your doing, isn't it?" she asks. "Doran is your heir, Loree, you didn't do all this just for me, did you?"

"I love you like you're mine own daughter, Ella," she says. "It will bring me naught but joy to see you and my son wed one day, and I think it shall bring you joy as well. You deserve a good life. I can't promise that Doran will be as beautiful as your brother, but—"

"Oh, I don't _care_ about that!" Rhaella exclaims. "Will he be kind?"

She thinks of her sweet son, cautious with smiles but as caring as his father. "Yes, sweetling, he will be kind."


	82. Elia x Arthur XVI

_**Anon asked:** can you do a prompt where ashara makes elia and arthur go on a blind date together? pls_

* * *

"No, no, and no. Absolutely _not_." Elia brandishes a handful of packaged syringes, as if that could ever thwart Ashara Dayne. "I don't have time for dating, and besides, the last time you set me up with someone it went so badly I had to fake a call from my mother and then _you_ hooked up with him."

"That's not the _point_ ," Ashara insists. "This isn't another Brandon Stark, I promise. I know you'll like this one."

Elia sighs as her pager trills. "Ash, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I'm just not interested, okay?"

Doggedly following her down the halls, Ashara pleads, "Look, just—after this, I won't bug you ever again, I promise."

"If I go out with this guy, you'll leave me alone?" she asks skeptically. "Even if it only lasts as far as a hello?"

"Cross my heart."

The offer is an appealing one, she has to admit: Ashara has been pestering her about finding someone for years, ever since Rhaegar had skipped town without so much as a goodbye. Not _all_ of Ashara's choices had been disasters, granted. She'd been downright smitten with Baelor Hightower, but then his job transferred him across the country. Things had fizzled out on the romance end after that, but he remains one of her closest friends.

Elia checks the chart of her next patient and gives in. " _Fine_. I'm off on Friday night, he can meet me at that Moroccan place on Fifth and Main."

Ashara grins her dazzling grin, pecks Elia on the cheek, and starts flouncing away. "You won't be disappointed, I mean it!"

"Ash," she calls after her. "Can't you at least tell me his name?"

Ashara pretends not to hear.

* * *

She doesn't know why she's nervous. It isn't as though she _hasn't_ gone on a thousand first dates before. Perhaps it's because he's late. Like, _half an hour_ late. She sits glumly at the table, trailing her finger around the rim of her water glass until it sings. She's been stood up before—by Rhaegar, most often—but she'd thought Ashara's earnestness meant this time would be different.

Finally fed up, she tosses her napkin on the chair and strides out of the dining room, already plotting the strongly worded conversation she intends to have with her oldest friend. In her distraction, however, she collides with someone and stumbles backwards a step.

"I'm sorry, I—" She blinks when she _recognizes_ the man. "Arthur?"

"Elia?" He seems just as shocked as she is. "Wow, how long's it been?"

"College?" They'd gone to the same university but rarely saw one another, her in the science building and him in education at the other end of campus. He'd been nice, though, she remembers that. "What are you doing here?"

Two long seconds of ringing silence follow her words as they come to the same realization.

"Oh, God," Elia groans. "Ashara?"

Arthur awkwardly shoves his hands in his pockets. "Yeah. I didn't think..."

"Me neither."

"Sorry I'm late," he says sheepishly. "I had a parent-teacher conference that ran over and then there was an accident on the freeway. I called the restaurant and they said they'd let you know, but apparently that didn't happen."

"It's fine." It's not really, she'd been about to leave, but she's too blindsided by being set up with _Ashara's brother_ to work through it. "Listen, um, it's been a long week. I think I'm just going to head home, if that's okay."

"Yeah, of course. I have some grading to do anyway." He looks almost relieved, and she's glad for it. "At least let me walk you to your car?"

"Sure," she says. "Thanks."

"Ash told me you're at the hospital downtown," he says as they step out into the gently falling snow. "How's that going?"

"It's good," she answers. "Tiring, and every week there's some new set of parents I have to convince to vaccinate their damn child, but good. What about you?"

"Fourth graders," he says. "A few cut-ups, but they just need direction is all."

She smiles to herself. She remembers that, too, how he'd always spoken of wanting to help kids, not just teach them. She'd thought him idealistic at the time, but it appears he'd made it work.

"So, a blind date?" she teases. "Don't tell me _you_ have trouble in that department."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he laughs.

"I mean, you're a good-looking guy," she shrugs. "Employed, likable, the works. What are you doing getting dates from Ashara?"

"I could ask you the same thing," he counters.

"Touché."

"No, I don't know, it's just..." His breath mists in the air as he exhales. "I've been on a few on my own, but nothing's clicked. Haven't gone past a third date in years."

"I know the feeling." Baelor had been half a decade ago now. "I've pretty much given up. To tell you the truth, I only agreed to this because Ash promised to quit badgering me."

Arthur chuckles. "I did the same. She's relentless, isn't she?"

"For better or worse." She comes to a stop as they arrive at her car. "This is me."

"Well, drive safe," he says. "I'm sure I'll see you around."

"Definitely." Pure impulse has her adding, "You know, I have a perfectly good bottle of wine at my apartment. We can wallow in self-pity together, if you're interested."

He smiles, and she feels her stomach flip. "I'd like that."


	83. Elia x Arthur XVII

_**poesiariptide asked:** Hi! Can I request an Arthur/Elia domestic fluff drabble where for once he's the one who falls sick and she takes care of him?_

* * *

She likes nights like this. Arthur's head in her lap as he grades assignments, her fingers absently toying with his hair as she reads a trashy romance novel. Not exactly high-brow literature, but it's an easy way to get her mind to settle after a rough week at the hospital.

"Ah, he's just taken off his entire shirt to bandage a cut on her arm," Elia remarks aloud. "She's thinking he may not be so bad after all."

Normally, Arthur finds amusement in her commentary, often remarking on the predictability of such novels and giving an over/under estimation on how many pages it would be before the protagonists quench their sexual tension. Tonight there's no response, and she looks down to see that he's fast asleep.

Fast asleep and snoring.

Elia chuckles to herself, and feels a pang of sympathy. In all the years she's known him, he never snores except when he's coming down with something. She knows full well what to expect in the coming days: a steadfast refusal to confess that he's sick, followed by being too ill to get out of bed and looking adorably miserable. He's as predictable as her bodice-rippers, her husband.

True to form, she watches him from over the rim of her coffee cup the next four mornings, smirking to herself as he valiantly tries to pretend he's not losing his voice or having a coughing fit every ten minutes. She knows _he_ knows that she knows, but she'll play into his charade while it lasts.

On the fifth day, like clockwork, he doesn't make it into the kitchen, and so she walks into the bedroom with a tray of soup, toast, and a bottle of Advil. "You are _hopeless_."

"Can you—"

"Already done. There's a substitute scheduled for the rest of the week. I can call out, if you want. I have vacation days."

He shakes his head. "Save them. I'll live."

"Okay, well, text me if you need anything. I _mean_ it, I don't want to find out you developed bronchitis because you went for a run again."

"That was _one time_ ," he complains. "Go on, you'll be late for work."

"All right, all right, I'm going," she laughs. "Rest up."

He grabs her hand before she can leave, a tired smile on his lips. "I love you, you know that?"

"I know," she says, leaning down to kiss his forehead. "I love you, too."


	84. Rhaegar, Oberyn, Elia x Arthur

_**Anon asked:** If possible in your excellent queen regent Elia fic & Rhaegar on the Wall can I get a Rhaegar getting the news that Elia has remarried & had a baby girl like with Baelor Hightower or someone else?_

 _Part 1 - Chapter 37_

 _Part 2 - Chapter 78_

* * *

He hadn't believed Lord Commander Qorgyle when he was told Oberyn Martell had come through the gates. What would he be doing _here_? Here, when he's an advisor in King's Landing?

Yet sure enough, it is the Red Viper who finds him in the barracks, calm as you please.

"Do you believe that in all my travels, I've never been here?" he asks, as though they'd seen each other only yesterday. "It's impressive."

 _Not when you have to maintain it_ , Rhaegar bemoans. _It's a bloody nightmare._

"What are you doing here, Prince Oberyn?" he asks. "Gloating?"

His erstwhile good-brother considers for a moment. "In a fashion. I came to tell you of Elia's happiness. She's just had another child."

"Good, she deserves–wait, what?" Surely he's misheard, _surely_.

"Yes, I suppose the news must not have made it to you," he says. His smile is as poisonous as a snake's. "It's a girl. Mariah, she's named. We're all very–"

"A _girl_?" Rhaegar interrupts. "She's had a _girl_? And she lived? The maester said that was impossible."

 _Oberyn must be lying_ , he thinks desperately. _He has to be. The maester was certain, and I…no, the gods would not let this be so._

"The maester was wrong. Yours often are, I've found. No doubt he underestimated Elia as so many people do. Of course, I'm sure it helped that she had time to recuperate and she no longer has you or your father around. The birth went quite smoothly."

He searches Oberyn's face for a hint of a falsehood, but can find none. Powering through his disbelief, he asks, "So she has married again, then? To which lord?"

"No, I think she's rather had enough of marriage," he says. "But as you well know, such a union is not necessary for children."

Rhaegar stares at him. "A _bastard_? You're lying, the…the court would never let that pass. I'd have heard of such a thing."

"The realm is stable, a girl is no threat to anyone, and compared to _your_ actions, this is hardly more than idle gossip," Oberyn says serenely. "No one is going to start another war over this."

"But…" It's like moving through molasses, trying to overcome this barrage of information. "If she is not wed, then who is the father?"

"She's not announced it nor, I suspect, will she ever. Some have their suspicions, understandably. The babe does have purple eyes, after all. Quite a rare trait, that."

"Purple…?" It's slow to come to him, but when it does, he feels the blood drain from his face. "No, that's not possible."

"It can't be proven, of course," Oberyn shrugs. "We have the blood of the dragon ourselves, there's nothing to say the color didn't come from Elia."

"But he's…he's a _Kingsguard_!"

"Aye, and so he's not claimed the babe," says Oberyn. "For now."

Rhaegar shakes his head in a fruitless attempt to clear it. "How did that even…?"

"I suppose no one would have told you that either," says Oberyn. "They'd have wed in our youth, had my mother allowed it."

" _Wed?_ "

"Indeed." Oberyn laughs. "You look rather faint, my prince. Shall I give you a moment?"

 _A moment? More like a lifetime._

"Ale. I need ale."


	85. Elia x Arthur XVIII

_**ask-mama-germania asked:** you-can we please get another chapter of the Queen Regent Elia Martell and Rhaegar at the wall-fic?_

 _Part 1 - Chapter 37_

 _Part 2 - Chapter 85_

 _Part 3 - Chapter 78_

* * *

It's as she's poring over the latest granary reports that her door bursts open—something that might have surprised her under normal circumstances, had she not been expecting this exact entrance for days now.

"Have you _heard_ what they're calling her?" exclaims Arthur, barely waiting until the door is closed to start in on his tirade.

Elia doesn't look up from the reports. "Yes, Arthur, I've heard. I really don't see the problem. She's good at arms, that should make you proud."

"She's going by Mariah _Morningstar_."

"A nice bit of alliteration, don't you think? Rhaenys came up with it, I believe."

" _Elia_."

With a sigh, she sets aside the papers and turns to him. He looks about two minutes away from having an apoplexy. "All right, perhaps it's a bit on the nose," she allows. "But she's four-and-ten, we should be grateful she's not sneaking off with stableboys."

" _On the nose?_ " he asks. "She may as well announce it to the world."

Elia rolls her eyes. " _Honestly_ , Arthur. We may never have confessed who her father is, but everyone at court has figured it out. She looks just like you, and we've shared a bed for over twenty years now. It's not exactly a secret."

"She's too much like your brother."

"She's as stubborn as me and as dedicated as you. Maybe Oberyn enables her, but we've got only ourselves to blame for the rest."

He slumps down on the bed, as tightly strung as a bow.

"Oh, relax. You're going to get wrinkles." With a sly smile, she abandons her reports entirely and climbs onto the bed. Slowly sliding his shirt over his head, she murmurs, "I know a few ways to help with that."

"I'm not going to let this go, you know," he warns, even as he flips her to her back and begins unlacing her gown.

"Yes, you are," she laughs. "You will let our little girl have her nickname and you will continue training her just like you always have."

He tosses her gown aside and mutters, "Maybe I won't."

"Then Rhaenys and Oberyn will take up the mantle." She reaches up and gently cups his cheek. "It's just a name, my love."

He kisses her palm. "You're right, I just…"

"It's not a sin to worry about your child," she says, "but it _is_ a sin to leave your queen wanting."

His frown turns into a smirk. "I can fix that."


	86. Elia, Rhaenys, Chataya

"Mama, it's so dark. I can't see anything."

"I know, baby, just a bit longer."

Truthfully, she doesn't know how much farther they have to go. She and Oberyn had stumbled upon the passageway many, many years ago, but they'd been children and had only traveled a few minutes before they got nervous and turned back. She doesn't even know _where_ this goes exactly, but it will at least take them out of the Red Keep, and right now that's all that concerns her. The image of those men climbing the walls of the Holdfast she'd always been told was impenetrable is seared in her mind.

Rhaenys grips her hand tightly, while Aegon is blessedly silent as he rests in the sling on her back. He hasn't cried once since they entered the tunnel, like he knows their lives depend on staying unheard.

After what seems an eternity, a glimmer of light appears ahead, and Elia approaches warily, fearing that they could emerge only to find themselves in the midst of Lord Tywin's men.

But instead, as she peers this way and that, the street is eerily empty. She can't get her bearings at first, but then she spots the sign of a tavern whose name she vaguely recalls Ser Barristan mentioning once in passing as a place for drunks and malcontents. She supposes they must have joined the army in looting the city.

Just as well for her.

"Come on," she urges Rhaenys. "Hurry, darling."

Scarves cover their heads, a thin attempt to shield them from prying eyes, but she knows it would only help for passing glances. There aren't many Dornishwomen in the capital, and none but her with two small children in tow. She hurries them along the cobbled streets and finally comes across one she knows. A brothel is no place for babes, but for this one Elia would make an exception.

She bangs on the door desperately, hearing the sounds of soldiers frighteningly near, and then finally a woman opens it a crack. "Who are you?"

"Is Melessa here?" she asks. It's a vain hope; she knows her uncle's paramour helps the girls as a midwife and caregiver now and again, but luck would have to be on her side.

As it happens, luck is not. "No. You a friend of Missy's?"

"Yes, very much so," says Elia. "Get Chataya, then. She knows me. I need shelter until I can safely get out of the city."

"This is no inn."

" _Get her_ ," Elia demands.

The woman looks about to protest again, but then the door is pulled wide open, and Elia sighs in relief to see the madam standing there. "Come inside, quickly."

"I pray I need not impose upon you for long," says Elia. "I do not wish to put you in danger."

"Never mind that," says Chataya as she draws her into a warm embrace. "You are safe here, princess."


	87. Baelor x Jena

_For pliocenecat_

* * *

Organization is not Jena's forte, but by god does she pride herself on maintaining a well-stocked medicine cabinet.

The action more familiar than she'd like, she hauls the veritable cornucopia of supplies onto the kitchen table and points at the chair opposite hers. "Sit."

Baelor obliges, looking much like a sullen child. His nose is a mess, the bleeding only marginally quelled by the mountain of tissues he's gone through. It's already starting to turn black and blue, too.

"You didn't even _ice_ it?" she chides. "One of these days, I'm going to refuse to do this for you and send you to your mother instead."

He smiles as much as his split lip will allow. "No you won't."

"I _should_. Now don't move." He's a good patient, at the very least, staying perfectly still as she pokes and prods and douses the injury with various disinfectants. Once she's done with her examination, she grabs him a bag of frozen peas to keep down the swelling. "Well, I don't think it's broken this time, but only barely. Care to tell me what happened? I thought rec hockey was supposed to be _non_ -contact."

"What do you think?" Baelor's easy affability is gone, replaced with the kind of dark anger she knows is caused by only one thing.

She busies herself cleaning up the medical supplies as she tries to stop from getting worked up herself. "Who said it?"

"Some guy on the other team. I don't know his name."

"Retaliation isn't like you."

"I wasn't going to," he says. "But you know Maekar, he's on a hair trigger when it comes to stuff like that. I'd have let him at it, but Anna's due any day now and I didn't want him to come home looking like, well, me."

Jena feels her heart melting. She's always loved the bond he has with his brother, though she herself has only rarely seen past Maekar's thorny exterior. Careful not to hurt him, she leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to his lips. "I love how much you care," she says. "You're a good man."

"I bet you won't think so tonight."

Jena scoffs. "You already sound like a car wreck, your snoring couldn't possibly get any worse."

Turns out, it can.

She knows if she were to wake him up and complain he'd readily go sleep on the couch, but she'd rather put up with the noise than an empty bed. Chuckling to herself, she retrieves from her bedside table a pair of earplugs, then snuggles up to Baelor and lets the steady rise and fall of his chest lull her to sleep.


	88. Elia x Arthur XIX

_**Anon asked:** How about Elia and Arthur running off to Essos together? Like, he sells his armor, she sells most of her jewelry and they just life a very sweet life together_

* * *

She wishes there weren't a mirror in her chambers. It would mean she could avoid catching glimpses of herself, glimpses of the future Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Mother to kings and princesses. Rhaegar's wife. Her mother is overjoyed, she knows, but all Elia feels is panic. She'd never wanted this. She'd never wanted out of Dorne, never wanted a throne, never wanted the crown prince. She's only been in King's Landing for a month, yet already she knows there would be no passion in her marriage, no love. She'd grown up idolizing her parents' marriage, one of surprise kisses and laughter, not...Rhaegar.

This is her last night as merely a princess of Dorne; come morning, she would be bound forever to House Targaryen. She turns away from the mirror and sits on her bed, overcome with nausea, her breath coming in short bursts.

When her door slowly creaks open, she expects it to be Ashara or one of her other ladies, perhaps even the queen—she certainly doesn't expect it to be _Arthur_.

Looking at him is just as painful as looking in the mirror. Once, she'd thought she would marry him, had envisioned their future together. Now, she will be forced to be around him every hour of every day, wed not to him but to his friend, never to touch.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, defeated.

He snaps shut the door and hurries into her room, more animated than she's seen him in a long time. "You're not going to marry Rhaegar."

Her breath stops completely. "What?"

"You don't want it, and nor could I endure it." He sinks to his knees in front of her and grasps her hands. "Come away with me."

"Come away—? Arthur, what are you _talking_ about?"

"Rhaegar isn't the only one with friends. There's a ship that can take us anywhere we want to go. You just have to say yes."

Elia can do nothing but stare at him. "That would be...that would be _treason_ , or close enough. You're a Kingsguard, I'm betrothed, we would be breaking every vow—"

"I swore to love you long before I swore anything to Aerys," he interrupts. "That should come before aught else, shouldn't it?"

Abruptly she stands from the bed and begins pacing, trying to keep her wits about her. This is _impossible_. Even if he does have a ship's captain, they couldn't...they _couldn't_...surely not? If they were to be caught...but if they _weren't_ caught...?

"This is madness," she whispers. "You speak _madness_."

He slowly gets to his feet, searching her face, and then looks away. "Yes, I suppose it was. It was foolish to think you would shirk your duty. It was unfair to ask you."

He gets halfway to the door before she rushes to him and grabs his arm. "I said it was madness, I didn't say I wouldn't leave," she blurts out. "But...but where would we _live_? What would we do for coin? What—"

"I don't know," he says with a helpless laugh. "I don't know. We'd figure something out."

"We need a _plan_ ," she says. She _always_ has a plan. Oberyn is the one who jumps in with both feet without a guarantee, not her.

"We don't have time for a plan." He holds out his hand to her. "If not now, then never."

She shuts her eyes for a moment, for once letting her heart lead. Locking away her good judgment, she snatches up the nearest bag she can find, thrusting two gowns at random into it as well as her box of jewelry—Arthur may be fine having no safeguards, but she's not. Not all of her jewels are sentimental, after all, she could sell them if need be. The crown Rhaella had gifted her would fetch the highest price, but that one she doesn't take; she can't bring herself to even think of carelessly discarding it.

 _I'm sorry_ , she thinks. She knows Rhaella had been so happy to have her there, a reminder of her mother and the daughter she's never had. _I'm sorry I can't marry your son._

There's much more she wants to bring, trinkets and clothing alike, but she knows she could never take them, not with the subtlety they would need. "All right," she says. She looks up at him, struck again by how _preposterous_ this is. Not just for her, but for dutiful, sensible Arthur.

She takes his hand.

* * *

She doesn't often have the dreams anymore, the ones where she's certain she imagined it all, the ones where she expects to find herself again in the Red Keep the day before her wedding and all of this would fade away. She'd had it last night, though, and had had to light a candle to illuminate the room, open the window to take in the air, reassure herself that this _is_ real, that she _had_ fled from it all.

From behind her she hears him get out of bed and she turns around with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

His voice is still raspy with sleep, but he is otherwise as alert as ever. "Are you all right?"

"Just the dream again," she assures. "I'll be fine."

"I have them, too, sometimes," he admits. That comes as a surprise—he'd never told her that before. "I dream that Aerys has found out and I'll be the next on his pyre. And then I see you. Both of you."

He places his hands on her swollen belly, and she covers them with her own. "We have nothing to fear anymore. We're safe."

"Yes," he says, kissing her. "We are."


	89. Rhaegar, Aemon

_**Anon asked:** Can we get part four of your fic? And yes, more Rhaegar getting screwed over, the better!_

 _ **Another anon asked:** Can I get Rhaegar on the Wall getting the news that Dany made dragons so nothing that he did or sacrificed was worth fiddly diddly squat?_

 _Part 1 - Chapter 37_  
 _Part 2 - Chapter 84_  
 _Part 3 - Chapter 78_  
 _Part 4 - Chapter 85_

* * *

The Night's Watch has gone from sullen workers to gossiping fishwives from one night to the next, that's the first thing he notices. Rhaegar normally doesn't bother with that kind of talk—what does he care what asinine matters they discuss?—but this time, it attracts his attention. Rather, a _word_ catches his attention.

 _Dragons._

He bursts into Uncle Aemon's quarters, desperate for clarification. "What is this the men are saying?" he asks. "There are dragons?"

Aemon takes his time answering. "Yes, three have hatched in King's Landing," he says calmly.

"So I was right, _we_ were right!" Rhaegar exclaims. An excited buzzing the likes he hasn't felt since the night Aegon was conceived begins to fill his veins. "Uncle, we were _right_."

"No, dear boy. No, we were very _wrong_. It is Daenerys the dragons hatched for."

It takes several seconds for Rhaegar to understand what his uncle is saying. "Daenerys," he repeats. "Well, all right, that's—still, Dany, Rhaenys, and Aegon, then—"

"No," says Aemon again. "The dragons did not bond to them."

"But…but then _who_ —?"

Aemon chuckles. An incredulous chuckle, to be sure, but devoid of Rhaegar's befuddlement. "They are unexpected, that much can be said. If the rumors are indeed true, it's Doran Martell's boy and Robert Baratheon's natural daughter from the Vale."

Rhaegar wishes to all the gods that his world would stop being continuously upended—first his sentencing to the Wall, then Oberyn's visit informing him that Elia had birthed not only a girl but a _bastard_ girl, then Rhaenys's tearful anger, and now this. He would think Aemon jesting, but his uncle has never been much of a jester, and definitely not about this.

"They all have the dragon blood, you see," explains Aemon unnecessarily. "Through Princess Daenerys and mine own sister."

"Yes, I know my history." Rhaegar massages his temples. "This can't possibly be happening."

"You know better than most how fickle prophecies can be," says Aemon. "First we thought it was you, and then your son. What hubris we had to ever think we could see the truth of it."

" _Uncle_ ," Rhaegar objects. "You can't say this is well and good. Oberyn said Prince Quentyn is as shy as they come, and there can't be a bastard dragonrider!"

Aemon raises an eyebrow. "No? Have I imagined the dragonseeds of our past?" he asks facetiously. "Dragons bonded to them, why not to this Mya Stone?" Aemon feebly touches his arm. "It matters not who rides the dragons so long as the Others are defeated."

He knows Aemon's right. Conceptually, he knows that. But to know it and to accept it, to accept that his entire life he's been so _wrong_ , is another matter entirely. He supposes Elia must be happy; she had never believed in the prophecy to begin with, had feared for the safety of their children no matter his assurances.

Rhaegar feels a headache coming on with a dragon's vengeance—again.


	90. Oberyn, Brandon, Rhaegar

_djsunspears asked: Can I request a fic where Brandon and Oberyn team up in the afterlife to kick Rhaegar's ass, for what he did to their sisters?_

* * *

No matter what the rest of Westeros may think of Dornishmen, no matter that Oberyn knows sometimes he jumps into things without an exit, he's no fool—when he enters this place, he knows exactly what it is. He also knows exactly what to say:

"Shit."

"It's the gloating that got you killed," comes a voice replete with the harsh accents of the North. Oberyn hasn't seen Brandon Stark in half a lifetime, but he looks the same as he did twenty years ago, feet propped up on a table as he whittles.

"You're one to talk." They're both dead; there's no need for delicacy or decorum, so far as Oberyn's concerned. "What kind of _fucking moron_ charges into King's Landing and demands of the Mad King his son's head?"

"At least I didn't rub my victory in his face before I actually _had the victory_."

It vaguely strikes Oberyn as downright ridiculous that the minute he gets to the afterlife, he vaults into an argument with Brandon Stark of all people, but he's rarely been one to question his own actions. He opens his mouth to argue, but then a new voice, a resonant, commanding one, cuts through the air.

"Children," says Mariah Martell, primly playing tiles with Queen Alysanne, "has it occurred to you that there is someone else you ought to be mad at rather than each other?"

"Ah, yes," says Oberyn, wondering why _this_ wasn't the first thing he did. "Where _is_ the dragon prince these days?"

"I don't know," says Brandon. "In all this time I've never seen him."

"Oh, _honestly_ ," scoffs Alysanne. She clears her throat and calls out, "Rhaegar, dearest, come here, won't you?"

"Shouldn't you be protecting him, not helping us?" Brandon asks.

All Alysanne has to do is raise one silver eyebrow and Brandon quiets like a kicked dog. "I never let my own husband get away with being a right bastard, do you really think I'd let my distant grandson do so?"

"It's rather impressive, causing the downfall of our entire house," puts in Rhaenyra, appearing seemingly out of nowhere with a glass of wine in her ghostly hand. "At least _I_ had a good reason to go to war."

"Yes, you did," placates Mariah. "But that's in the past now."

No one has a chance to bicker further, for Rhaegar appears next, harp in hand. "You called?"

"Indeed." Alysanne quirks her head in their direction. "These boys would like to speak with you."

Rhaegar follows her motion and gives them an uneasy smile. "Oh. Hello."

"Same time?" Oberyn asks his new companion.

Brandon grins. "Same time."

Mariah's request to not break any of the furniture falls on deaf ears.


	91. Alys x Sigorn

_scorpiosleeps asked: Alys Karstark x Sigorn of the Thenns drabble? I love your take on Elia, she deserved so much better. More strong women! My favorite quote from Alys is when she's asked if she's afraid of Sigorn.. And she replies "Let him be scared of me." I'd love to see an equal partnership between the two, the people from beyond the wall aren't as stupid as southern lords when it comes to their wives._

* * *

 _Let him be scared of me_ , she'd told Jon, with a bravado that had been genuine at the time. She's a Karstark, and Karstarks are bred to be fearless.

She was able to ignore it through her wedding—the ceremony was something she was unused to, and she had to concentrate on the proceedings.

She was able to ignore it through the feast—a jovial atmosphere, dancing, wine, distractions.

She was even able to ignore it through her bedding—shouting insults in return, trying to maintain some form of dignity.

She can't ignore it now.

She's naked and her new husband is naked, and there's no frivolities, no guests, no _nothing_ to help her pretend it's just another day. She knows in concept what comes next, but little else. She'd grown up in a household of men, who had told her nothing about _her_ part in this except that she's expected to shut up and take it, that she's her husband's property for him to do with as he likes. For all that she'd had to be hardened as someone of the North, she's expected to be as gracious and helpless as some southron flower.

She'd had to be hardened, yes, but now…now she's _terrified_.

She's endured plenty of pain before, broken bones, gashes, her cycles, but this will be something different entirely. It's that she's saved herself for marriage, exactly, only that she'd never met a man she was inclined to let between her legs, but now she very much wishes she had.

She avoids looking at the Magnar—she cannot think of him as Sigorn, she cannot, not with this—as she lies back on the bed, stiff as a board. She attempts to relax, but trying only makes it worse. She shuts her eyes, hoping that would make it easier. Maybe if she doesn't have to see his face, if she doesn't know _when_ he's to shove inside her, perhaps that would be better.

Except minutes pass, and she feels nothing, hears nothing. Cautiously she opens her eyes and finds that he's standing where she left him, simply looking at her. Not staring, not ogling, not judging, just… _looking_. Like he had at their wedding, like he had during their dance.

"You…not want," he says in his broken Common Tongue. He gestures to her and then himself and adds, "You not want Magnar."

"No, it's…" He's been kind enough to her so far, but then, many men are decent during the day, and not so during the night. "I don't…know how."

He frowns, as though trying to translate her words. "Magnar will show."

She eyes him warily as he gets onto the bed, and it takes all her conviction not to cover herself, not to fight him off like she'd been trained. _Show_ , she expects to mean _take_.

But that is not what he does.

With a tenderness that almost makes her forget how many people he's killed, he runs his finger down her cheek, across her lips, then trails his hand down to her breast. Slowly, patiently. He looks up at her; she'd never realized that there's blue in his gray eyes, how young he is now that he's no more clothed than she, no weapon in his hand nor violence twisting his mouth. She'd never asked his age, but by her reckoning he can't be that much older than she. Certainly not the twice-her-elder lord she'd grown up anticipating.

His other hand slides down her side, though no lower. Instead he leans down and kisses between her breasts, kisses the curve of the one his hand is not caressing. She feels her blood warm, feels pulses of… _pleasure_ where he touches her.

He pauses again and asks, "Stop?"

Heart pounding, she shakes her head. " _Don't_ stop."

Her body is thrumming, _singing_ by the time his hand finally touches her center, still as methodical as he was in the beginning. It is _her_ who asks him to enter her and—it _doesn't_ hurt, hardly at all, nothing like what she'd been told. He's gentle, only losing himself at the very end when she's overcome by a sensation she's never before felt, one she can't describe, and when he pulls out of her she can do nothing but lie there boneless. She aches, but it's a _good_ ache.

When she eventually has the strength to move, she turns her head to look at him, and gives him a languid smile. Her Old Tongue is even worse than his Common, but she wraps her tongue around the syllables as best she can and murmurs, _I want._


End file.
